www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

The floor in my (ex council) flat is concrete with what I think is old 80's Vinyl tile on bitumen glue. I don't want to lift this floor as it's mostly in good condition but also it would make a right mess as I know from lifting loose areas in other parts of the flat.

Before I can lay the new floor I will need to repair damaged areas to make it level. What would be the best thing to use for this? I want to limit myself to spot repairs rather than doing say a complete plywood overlay if possible.

I would lay SLC on top of the tiles, sealing them in and forming a perfect level substrate. Loads of videos on Youtube for guidance on application.

DWD

I don't think that would be practicable in my case.

I had it done over tiles in a kitchen in a house I was in, the floor level increase was minimal. Your choice.

DWD

Not the level increase that worries me, it's the location of the floor and the trim around it. I am not confident I could contain a full pour without it leaking into the adjacent rooms. I am working in a hallway from which all other rooms are accessed and with wooden thresholds for each room.

Using a SLC to fill the holes might work alright though.

I can understand that it is a bit of a challenge. It is quite easy to hot glue some wooden strip barriers in the doorways so the SLC is contained. It really is not that runny and it is more like thick cream in consistency. With a bit of thought you can create barriers anywhere you do not want the SLC to creep. In the same way, you can lay it in two goes with a barrier in a convenient position to allow easy movement. I am not trying got push you into this solution but I do see it as the best way to go.

DWD

I'll have a think about that. Thanks.

mate of mine lays lvt flooring for a living.

he recently did a floor for one of my customers in a council house. this floor when we uplifted the old laminate we found parts of it had deteriorated and turned to mush. he used a mapaei product to fill in the bits and pieces and then he used a liquid dpm over the entire floor as it was reading high moisture content. then he laid a compound over the entire floor and went from there. any doorways were dealt with as necessary.

important to check dampness in the floor and to use the correct products. dont just use a cheap slc as it is likely to fail. ive been on many jobs with this lad where old screeds have shelled off the floor

fin wrote: ↑Sat Aug 31, 2024 6:48 pm mate of mine lays lvt flooring for a living.

he recently did a floor for one of my customers in a council house. this floor when we uplifted the old laminate we found parts of it had deteriorated and turned to mush. he used a mapaei product to fill in the bits and pieces and then he used a liquid dpm over the entire floor as it was reading high moisture content. then he laid a compound over the entire floor and went from there. any doorways were dealt with as necessary.

important to check dampness in the floor and to use the correct products. dont just use a cheap slc as it is likely to fail. ive been on many jobs with this lad where old screeds have shelled off the floor

That was one of the reasons I was planning to fill rather than cover, the original council floor tiles are still in use in some parts of the flat and apart from a few cracks and stains they are generally still very sound, I'd much rather lay onto that than add another layer. No issues with damp in the floor, every time flooring has been lifted it's been bone dry underneath so it seems they did a good job with the DPC before they poured the floor.

Got all the carpet up and it's worse than I thought. Brittle council tiles are cracked all around the edge and many of the full tiles are lifting. Underneath there is bitumen adhesive on the concrete floor.
Not really sure what to do now, apparently SLC doesn't like bitumen.

sounds as if its much like that job i mentioned.

fin wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2024 5:49 pm sounds as if its much like that job i mentioned.

Yes I think so.

I looked in SLC and there is one (Arditex) that is able to be poured over bitumen. So I did think about doing this even though the cost would be very high. So I looked at the floor to try and work out approx. how much SLC I would need and I found a bigger problem. The floor is at it's highest in the middle and then slopes down towards the doors. The high spot is so high that it's actually higher than some of the door thresholds. If I poured enough SLC (I would need a lot, even though it's a small space) to cover this high spot it would almost certainly overflow into the other rooms and there is a good chance I wouldn't be able to open my front door (it sits less than 25mm above the current floor level).

So basically I need to accept the floor is never going to be level. I am going to fill in the holes in the cement where the tiles took the adhesive with them and then SBR the whole floor to seal it.

Could you not break the high point with an SDS? The concrete breaking under would release both the bitumen and the tile and you could get the floor more even to make the the SLC much lower. I think I would look at filling the voids with Mapei and just laying sheet vinyl, there are so many styles now and it is warm underfoot and looks good. I have sheet in my kitchen on a concrete floor and it works well.

DWD

The high point isn't an easily defined peak as such, it's a slowly building hump that covers about 200mm square. The whole floor is mostly smooth but not level. In theory yeah I guess I could chisel it out but where do I stop and I still have the problem that the front door is one of the lowest points by my estimation and I only have 25mm to play with.

It will probably end up being sheet vinyl but I am going to try the vinyl tile the missus wants (and I prefer TBH) for adhesion on the SBR, only £20 for a packet so no great loss if it doesn't work. At least I don't have to lay laminate now!

The vinyl planks look the same as the sheet I have it in my loo. Light oak plank effect, you really cannot see that it is sheet.

DWD