Hi All. I've recently knocked through the wall between my kitchen and dining room and am now starting to think about laying some flooring. The house is a 1920/30s terrace with suspended floors throughout except for the kitchen which is concrete slab (for the most part at least - in one corner it looks to be straight onto soil). Possibly stupidly, i pulled up the floor that was there previously - quarry tiles onto the slab (and soil in parts), a strange plasticy black coating - bitumen maybe?, old lino and then tongue and groove tile effect boards - the top level.
At some point I'm going to have to level the kitchen section to bring it up to the height of the dining room floorboards. On top of this i plan on laying plywood or hardboard before the vinyl goes down.
My main concern is that by removing the quarry tiles (and possibly the bitumen coating) I'll be asking for damp problems in the future. The concrete slab feels and looks dry but the soil section in the corner feels moist (as you would expect soil to!).
I'm stuck with ideas of what i should do. I had a builder tell me to screed over everything with a sand and cement mix but there was no mention of any dpc and i've read that sometimes you can force the damp to go up the walls instead.
Elsewhere I've read putting down a breathable soil and clay mix but ive no idea what this means. Also, im not sure what this would mean for me laying the top vinyl level, especially if i was considering putting ply down first.
Somewhere else mentioned ripping out the concrete and building a new suspened floor to match everywhere else on the groundfloor? this sounds like a lot of work and therefore a lot of cost. The people before me lived there for 30+ years and i guess it never caused them a problem as it is but i want to be on the safe side having spent so much money sorting pretty much everything else in the house out so far!
If you've followed the predicament i've described i'd appreciate any thoughts! Im a novice to the diy game and am not against getting a pro in to do the work but i've read mixed stories about how knowledge of damp issues is fairly inconsistent between the so called pros.
At some point I'm going to have to level the kitchen section to bring it up to the height of the dining room floorboards. On top of this i plan on laying plywood or hardboard before the vinyl goes down.
My main concern is that by removing the quarry tiles (and possibly the bitumen coating) I'll be asking for damp problems in the future. The concrete slab feels and looks dry but the soil section in the corner feels moist (as you would expect soil to!).
I'm stuck with ideas of what i should do. I had a builder tell me to screed over everything with a sand and cement mix but there was no mention of any dpc and i've read that sometimes you can force the damp to go up the walls instead.
Elsewhere I've read putting down a breathable soil and clay mix but ive no idea what this means. Also, im not sure what this would mean for me laying the top vinyl level, especially if i was considering putting ply down first.
Somewhere else mentioned ripping out the concrete and building a new suspened floor to match everywhere else on the groundfloor? this sounds like a lot of work and therefore a lot of cost. The people before me lived there for 30+ years and i guess it never caused them a problem as it is but i want to be on the safe side having spent so much money sorting pretty much everything else in the house out so far!
If you've followed the predicament i've described i'd appreciate any thoughts! Im a novice to the diy game and am not against getting a pro in to do the work but i've read mixed stories about how knowledge of damp issues is fairly inconsistent between the so called pros.
