Works great the scores in the screws are perfect. I have a real hardwood floor tongue and groove and the 1/8 bit was too small i broke off 2 screws before they were all the way in so I had to remove them with vise gripe locked on the broken screw to remove it. I went and got 1 size bigger drill bit 9/64 and it worked perfectly! Good buy, great design. Pulled my hardwood down enough to subfloor to eliminate that little gap and to stop that squeak noise. Just go ahead and buy another box of screws you’ll need them!! Use your shavings from drill hole you pre drilled to put back in the hole I mixed my shaving with a bit of glue let it dry in hole then used a wood stain marker. Can’t even tell where I drilled hole they also sell a kit of wax for hardwood flooring holes fill hole with the color to match and run your little heater wax melter in kit across it to melt looks perfect! Read more
Simple & Easy 2 follow instructions provided. The only tool not included was the 1/8” drill bit, but I had one. The only other tricky thing was locating floor joists underneath and I used my electronic stud finder to determine exact center. Everything else went smooth and now the squeak is barely audible. In expecting it will completely vanish once we get out of the winter season and return to moderate temperatures which will have the wood expand and further tighten up the connections. Read more
I bought this kit hoping for a simple solution to some floor squeaks, but it turned into a complete nightmare. Every single screw I tried—literally 100% of them—snapped off before reaching the proper depth. These screws are clearly made of low-quality, brittle metal that cannot handle the torque required to drive into a standard joist. Because they snapped prematurely, I was left with two equally bad scenarios: 1. The "Hammer Down": For the screws that snapped near the surface, I had to try and hammer the jagged remains down so they wouldn't poke through the carpet and stab someone’s foot. 2. The "Vice Grip": For those with a bit more shank exposed, I had to use vice grips to back them out of the floor. Instead of fixing a squeak, this product left me with damaged subfloors and screws pushing up against my carpet. If you value your time and your flooring, stay far away from this kit. Read more
The two joist finding screws are made of cheap material thus are bent causing a wobble at the tip. The screws which are meant to break off easily at the top using the plastic tool did not break, so had to use pliers back and forth with great deal of force. Read some comments complaining that the screws were breaking off at the top. That's how they are suppose to work so the tips do not rise above the surface of carpets - designed to be undetectable under the carpet. Unfortunately, the ones delivered to me didn't break off easily, only just a few did so. DO NOT recommend using it if you live in a condo or an apartment because there are water and electrical pipes under the floors. Even in a house make sure you understand the floor plan. Read more
I had 4 very squeaky & creaky areas in my combination softwood/hardwood floors. So, I started out in the worst spot among them, near the kitchen sink. I had previously gone through with my deep scan stud finder & was fairly confident that I knew where all the studs were located - no access from below whatsoever. So, for the first fix I decided to go ahead & use the stud finder screw provided in the kit. This worked as intended but took a fairly large chip out of the top floor finish that I wasn't too pleased with. I then used my own galvanized 1/8 drill bit to pilot the hole down to 2 1/4" as instructed. Then I stood near the hole to get the floor to go down as far as it would with my own weight & used the softwood setting with the provided fixture to drill down one of the 50 provided break-off screws. It worked. In that particular spot at least. I still had loud squeaky areas on either side of it that were in line with the stud that I had just hit. But this time, since I knew where the stud was & didn't wish for another large chip of finish to get taken out, I opted for just pre-drilling the hole with my own 1/8" drill bit down 2 1/4"; This left me with two nice clean tiny drill holes which I then used with the softwood side of the fixture to drill in two more break-off screws. One worked beautifully, while the other broke off too early & left the steel nub of the broken -off screw sitting just above floor level. Now, what am I going to do? So, I left it too think about for a bit as I proceeded to work on other areas. I never did use the stud-finder again as I didn't wish to chip anymore large areas of finish off my flooring. I relied more on my own cheapo deep scan stud-finder & checked each spot mathematically as being withing the factor of 16 inches between each stud. This worked out very well in my home. But, I took my time with it. Then I used the hardwood setting on the fixture (which is lower)) thinking that this might help with the breakable stud screws not breaking off too early. I piloted each one with my own galvanized 1/8" drill bit down to about 2 3/8" & finished with the breakable stud screws. I used a total of 8 of the 50 screws & it did work well everywhere except for one more screw breaking off too early & leaving another steel nub protruding just above the finished floor. I ended up painstakingly drilling these two steel nubs down with my own galvanized 1/8" bit. It eventually worked. But it was a pain. I would have given the product 5 stars if two of the 8 breakable stud screws that I used hadn't broken themselves off too early - just above the finished floor. If I could go back in time, I might have used a slightly larger pilot bit then the 1/8" bit that the directions suggest. But just slightly. Maybe compare your own pilot bit to the width of the included stud-finder screw. That would probably solve the problem. Don't use any pilot bit any wider than that. Stay just a tad smaller or the break-off screws won't grab the stud. Read more
