We recently lifted carpet and (somewhat cracked) vinyl tiles on the ground floor of our 1950's house as we want to lay celotex insulation and wood flooring. Little glitch: the vinyl tiles were stuck with bitumen on a 15-20mm screeded subfloor that is very dusty/sandy and cracked in some places (mostly near edges and hearth). There is no concrete slab below and from inspecting some of the cracks, the screed seems to be laid directly onto a sandy base, possibly the sand above the hardcore We cannot afford to replace the subfloor, so desperately looking for a way to level and seal this screed! Suggestions please...
We initially considered using a concrete patch repair compound such as U-can from B&Q, but then realised that this may just cause the screed around the repairs to crack again. Would self-levelling compounds for concrete floors work in this situation? What do we need to do so that they 'stick' onto our sandy screed? Another option we are considering is to hire someone to grind the screed sub-floor then proceed with laying DPM, insulation, flooring, but not sure if this is a viable solution or just wishful thinking...
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p.s. - Here is the order of materials we plan to lay (from top to bottom)once the subfloor is level and sealed. This would lose about 7.5cm of the existing 2.4m floor to ceiling height, and we really don't want to lose too much more. Materials:
Engineered wood flooring (15-18mm)
Plywood (6mm)
Vapour control layer (tbc)
Celotex insulation (50mm)
DPM layer (bitumen paint or plastic DPM)
Existing subfloor with repairs
Thanks for reading
We initially considered using a concrete patch repair compound such as U-can from B&Q, but then realised that this may just cause the screed around the repairs to crack again. Would self-levelling compounds for concrete floors work in this situation? What do we need to do so that they 'stick' onto our sandy screed? Another option we are considering is to hire someone to grind the screed sub-floor then proceed with laying DPM, insulation, flooring, but not sure if this is a viable solution or just wishful thinking...
View media item 65612
View media item 65613
p.s. - Here is the order of materials we plan to lay (from top to bottom)once the subfloor is level and sealed. This would lose about 7.5cm of the existing 2.4m floor to ceiling height, and we really don't want to lose too much more. Materials:
Engineered wood flooring (15-18mm)
Plywood (6mm)
Vapour control layer (tbc)
Celotex insulation (50mm)
DPM layer (bitumen paint or plastic DPM)
Existing subfloor with repairs
Thanks for reading