Hi,
My fiancee and I have just bought our first house, and were aware from the point of survey that it had problems with the floor slab downstairs.
The downstairs of the house consists of a lounge/diner, hallway, downstairs toilet, and kitchen.
The kitchen is new and has a very flat (for our house) tiled floor. However it is impossible to see whether the concrete has been relaid in this area or sanded flat.
The problem is especially bad in the lounge where the floor has 'bubbled up' in a number of areas towards the front of the house. The hallway also seems to be suffering.
We are not DIY experts (although we're learning fast), so I would appreciate any thoughts on the bullets below:
- We are currently not planning on digging up the kitchen. When we replace it in the fullness of time we will resolve the floor here.
- Similarly we wish to leave the concrete under the stairs be.
- We wish to replace the concrete floor throughout the rest of the downstairs and estimate this to be 35 metres squared max.
- We are undecided whether a replacement concrete floor or floating wooden floor would be preferrable (have been told floating wooden may be cheaper but understand there are complications around ensuring adequate air flow under the floor)
- the house is on flat land and hence from a pre drilled bore hole (I suspect for an earlier sulphate attack test) you can see the hard core, concrete etc are of what I am led to believe is a fairly standard thickness (4 inch hardcore, 2 inch sand, 4 inch concrete, screed)
- Currently have no idea whether the internal walls are built directly on the slab and would appreciate guidance on the best ways to ascertain this.
- Would like to know if its possible to 'reslab' one room at a time.
- Would like to get a feeler for what kind of cost we could be reasonably charged for the job.
- Surveyor stated no signs of damage to the walls from the sulphate attack.
- Understand from Communities and Governments PDF guidance on Suplate attack that best solution is to remove hard core and slab and replace with non-sulphate rich hardcore, DPM, and fresh concrete slab + screed.
- Could we leave expansion channels (i.e. inch gap) between the new concrete and the areas of concrete we are not relaying to minimise chance of old concrete slab cuasing possible damage to the internal cavity walls in these parts of the house.
All comments welcome and thanks in advance for any help.
My fiancee and I have just bought our first house, and were aware from the point of survey that it had problems with the floor slab downstairs.
The downstairs of the house consists of a lounge/diner, hallway, downstairs toilet, and kitchen.
The kitchen is new and has a very flat (for our house) tiled floor. However it is impossible to see whether the concrete has been relaid in this area or sanded flat.
The problem is especially bad in the lounge where the floor has 'bubbled up' in a number of areas towards the front of the house. The hallway also seems to be suffering.
We are not DIY experts (although we're learning fast), so I would appreciate any thoughts on the bullets below:
- We are currently not planning on digging up the kitchen. When we replace it in the fullness of time we will resolve the floor here.
- Similarly we wish to leave the concrete under the stairs be.
- We wish to replace the concrete floor throughout the rest of the downstairs and estimate this to be 35 metres squared max.
- We are undecided whether a replacement concrete floor or floating wooden floor would be preferrable (have been told floating wooden may be cheaper but understand there are complications around ensuring adequate air flow under the floor)
- the house is on flat land and hence from a pre drilled bore hole (I suspect for an earlier sulphate attack test) you can see the hard core, concrete etc are of what I am led to believe is a fairly standard thickness (4 inch hardcore, 2 inch sand, 4 inch concrete, screed)
- Currently have no idea whether the internal walls are built directly on the slab and would appreciate guidance on the best ways to ascertain this.
- Would like to know if its possible to 'reslab' one room at a time.
- Would like to get a feeler for what kind of cost we could be reasonably charged for the job.
- Surveyor stated no signs of damage to the walls from the sulphate attack.
- Understand from Communities and Governments PDF guidance on Suplate attack that best solution is to remove hard core and slab and replace with non-sulphate rich hardcore, DPM, and fresh concrete slab + screed.
- Could we leave expansion channels (i.e. inch gap) between the new concrete and the areas of concrete we are not relaying to minimise chance of old concrete slab cuasing possible damage to the internal cavity walls in these parts of the house.
All comments welcome and thanks in advance for any help.
