Floor tiling - how level?

[uzziel49]

I'm probably going to tile my kitchen floor (not decided yet, but probably will). There's a concrete floor under the existing lino, but it feels as though there's a bit of unevenness in the floor level - not a lot, but a bit of a trough. Question is, how unlevel should it be before I need to put some self levelling compound down? How much of a drop, over what kind of area, do you think I could get away with? Tiles that my wife has picked out so far are 300mm squares if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

 

[Burnerman]

Use a good straight lath of wood across the floor (in all planes) to see how much your floor is uneven - you'll probably see that it isn't too much and the self levelling compound will happily cover a centimetre or more of fluctuation.
Get the floor as good as you can before tiling - bad faults will come back to haunt!
John

 

[uzziel49]

Thanks (again!) John.

When I say, I'm thinking of tiling my kitchen floor, what I really mean is we're haivng a new kitchen and I've had a number of people in to quote for the tiling....

However, the only person to mention that the floor isn't quite flat was a joiner - none of the tilers who have been have made any mention of it. From this, should I assume that the variance is negligible and they're happy to fill it with adhesive as they lay the tiles, or that they're not especially diligent/competent? To be honest I hadn't really registered the variance myself, I think because we live with it every day, so I never thought to mention it to any of the tilers that came. If someone screws up putting the tiles down, it'll be a job and a half to correct of course so I want to be confident of success before we start.

 

[Richard C]

I’m surprised the tillers haven’t mentioned it (mention it next time) & can only assume they considered it manageable or, as you said, haven’t noticed it/couldn’t give a stuff anyway. Be very careful who you employ or you may end up with a lot of grief; it’s always best to get references & look at some previous work if you can.

 

[Burnerman]

Do a little research yourself first, using a straight edge.....this will show you how much the floor is hollowed.
It will be a much better job if the floor is as flat as possible before tiling.
John