I have pulled the carpet off my stairs and I am putting in walnut treads. I put a few down last night and a couple of them creak when I walk on it. Here is what I did:
1. First I removed the 2x12 carpet tread and the 2x6 riser.
2. I either cleaned up and flattened the existing riser or replaced it with a new one. I attached the riser with liquid nails (subfloor flavor) and 3" long #8 deck screws.
3. I put the riser in at the correct height and then added shims to the stringer to bring them to the proper height. I attached the spacer on top of the stringer with liquid nails and either nails or screws if the spacer was tall.
4. I attached the walnut tread to the riser and stringer using subfloor liquid nails.
I think that the treads creak because I did not get the riser and 3 stringers all exactly level so the tread is only resting on 2 stringers and when I step on it the tread flexes down to the third stringer. What is the best way to fix this? Note, because of the construction of the stairs it is not feasible to attach screws to the treads from the back.
* LOML wants me to reglue and weight the tread down while the glue dries. I'm worried that the glue will eventually fail and then the tread will pop back up and creak again.
* I have a 16 gauge finish nailer, will that help at all or is 16 ga. too small? I'm worried that this will eventually fail too and pop up and creak.
* The only certain way I can think of is to pull out the tread, scrape off the glue and hand plane everything exactly flat. That sounds like a lot of work.