Thanks to help from the forum (see //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=152680) I partially dug up a concrete floor to re-route pipes for central heating. On top of the screed are vinyl tiles which were under the old carpet, and I had to remove about 9 tiles to do the digging up.
I threw away the old carpet and will eventually buy another, with a nice thick underlay, so I don't actually need to see the vinyl tiles.
Not knowing very much about these things, I have a few questions:
1, The tiles are about 2 mm thick, so where the tiles are missing the floor is about 2 mm lower. Will such a difference show through when I lay the underlay and carpet? I will be using professional carpet fitters, and I don't want them to think I've done a half-arsed job and not properly prepared the surface for them.
2, Assuming a 2 mm difference will show, should I replace the missing tiles, or should I remove all the other ones to make it all the same level? They prise up quite easily, so it might actually be easier to just get rid of all the old tiles than try and replace the missing ones. However, underneath the tiles is what I think is bitumen, which would be hard to remove. So I guess the question is - would bitumen underneath underlay be a bad idea, and again, would it annoy carpet fitters?
3, If the answer is (as I suspect) that it would be better to replace the missing tiles, what preparation should I do to the floor where I removed the tiles? I backfilled with a general purpose mortar mix, about 60 mm deep and varies between a 60 mm wide channel to a 400 mm wide area. I've got some cheap Marley vinyl tiles which say that a newly laid concrete floor needs to dry for 1 day per mm - does that apply to backfilled mortar too? The tiles also say that a porous surface should be primed - what sort of primer do I need?
4, The Marley tiles are self-adhesive. Given that I don't actually need to see them and they will be under carpet so unlikely to move at all, is it good enough to use the self-adhesive or should I get some proper adhesive, once I've prepared the floor as above?
Many thanks in advance.
I threw away the old carpet and will eventually buy another, with a nice thick underlay, so I don't actually need to see the vinyl tiles.
Not knowing very much about these things, I have a few questions:
1, The tiles are about 2 mm thick, so where the tiles are missing the floor is about 2 mm lower. Will such a difference show through when I lay the underlay and carpet? I will be using professional carpet fitters, and I don't want them to think I've done a half-arsed job and not properly prepared the surface for them.
2, Assuming a 2 mm difference will show, should I replace the missing tiles, or should I remove all the other ones to make it all the same level? They prise up quite easily, so it might actually be easier to just get rid of all the old tiles than try and replace the missing ones. However, underneath the tiles is what I think is bitumen, which would be hard to remove. So I guess the question is - would bitumen underneath underlay be a bad idea, and again, would it annoy carpet fitters?
3, If the answer is (as I suspect) that it would be better to replace the missing tiles, what preparation should I do to the floor where I removed the tiles? I backfilled with a general purpose mortar mix, about 60 mm deep and varies between a 60 mm wide channel to a 400 mm wide area. I've got some cheap Marley vinyl tiles which say that a newly laid concrete floor needs to dry for 1 day per mm - does that apply to backfilled mortar too? The tiles also say that a porous surface should be primed - what sort of primer do I need?
4, The Marley tiles are self-adhesive. Given that I don't actually need to see them and they will be under carpet so unlikely to move at all, is it good enough to use the self-adhesive or should I get some proper adhesive, once I've prepared the floor as above?
Many thanks in advance.
