On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 19:54:45 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 10:09:31 PM UTC-5, wrote:


Ring nails were used in the days before power screw drivers - and
they don't hold any better now than they did then. It is because
of ring nails that people now have squeaky floors to fix with
screws.

How is that? Is there some problem with ring nails compared to regular
smooth nails?

Nope - but ALL nails will loosen over time.
Ring nails were better than plain nails, but not as good as screws.
All of my flooring was nailed. Other than the hardwood in the
bedrooms, ALL of my flooring is now screwed down.

Nailed floors are somewhat OK for floors covered by hardwood or carpet. But nailed floors covered with vinyl tile or linoleum is pitiful! After some years every nail in the floor will show as a raised bump. That's because the rings are smaller than screw threads and will raise up faster with expansion/contraction with temperature/humidity changes. Believe me, I know from experience.


And unless the subfloor is glued down as well as nailed, it will
squeak long before the nail-pops show through the vinyl or linoleum.

That said, I'd rather hit my head on a ring nail than a screw - I
know what the ring nail feels like, and can only imagine how much more
the nail would hurt. My head was hard enough to drive the nail up
through the linoleum - and I'm sure it would not have been hard enough
to drive the screw up!!!!