Problem with kitchen floor help needed

[hoppaz]

My downstairs back consists of a kitchen, small passageway and a bathroom. When I moved in I replaced the bathroom floor and the passageway with tiled laminate. I left the lino down in the kitchen that was in.

I am in the process of refitting my kitchen and came across a strange issue. The kitchen itself is U shaped and and about 3 quarters of the way into the kitchen the floor level drops about 6mm on a very sharp slope which is only a couple of inches.

The area closest the cabinets (about 50-60cm) is lower than the rest of he three rooms.

The floor everything else is laid onto is black type material which has the resemblence of knitware so I am not sure what it is and I don't want to pull everything up to rip it out.

Now that everything has been fitted I am thinking what the best way is to raise the 1 quarter of "walking on" floor which isn't level is to put some 6mm marine ply down and then use self leveling compound in this slope area to make everything level. Is this a good idea?

 

[alsheating]

I think what you are going for is a simple plan but a fair bit of permenant work which once done, will be very expensive and time consumiing to have corrected.

To be on the safe side, and this may saound patronizing, get a "builder" to inspect it or get a few maybe three to give you different quotes and explantions of what it is and how to get it fixed, this is assuming you are not a "builder". And also with the info gained from 3 quotes if you want to fix it yourself, you will know what you really need to do and save yourself money>

 

[hoppaz]

Thanks for quick reply. I can only really raise the 1 third to just under the new kitchen cabinets where I can fit the plinth.

Beyond this there is wood which gives access to under flooring plumbling as well as the gas hob outlet and I don't want to raise this area as all of these are on the lower area (and quite possibly why they floor is the way it is).

Basically the area that needs to be raised is about 50cm by 90cm which is walked on so I was hoping to use the plan I had to get a level floor to lay new vinyl on so the walking area is pretty much the same height wise.

I could do nothing as the vinyl will flex over the dip but ideally from a belt and braces point of view it should be level.

 

[mac391]

Knitware lol !!

Sounds like what you have is a bitumen sub-floor and the knitware effect is the imprint of the backing of your previous floor covering.

You can't lay ply onto bitumen as adhesive won't stick to it and screws/plugs will probably break it up with drilling, it's very brittle.

You should prime the floor with neat neoprene primer and lay a 6mm screed.

If you need to level the timber part, you can ply and screed to bring it level.

 

[hoppaz]

Thanks for the reply.

Here is an idea of what I have...

The small green area is cemented which runs onto wood (under cabinets).


The red area is the bichumin area which is 6mm higher. Don't know why but someone in the past has levelled this off on a slope. I was going to put marine ply down under the units and then attempt to level of the sloping area (represented with the black line) with screed/levelling compound between the raised bichumin floor and the ply.