Wearing screed fail

[MSB81]

Hi all,

I laid a couple of 20kg bags of this product (https://www.resins.direct/products/heavy-duty-self-levelling-cement-screed) in my outbuilding today, however the finished floor is probably more uneven that the floor I put it down on. For info, the floor is in an outbuilding (1.4m x 2m).

I followed the instructions to the letter, however the final mix had little movement in it after pouring, with peaks failing to flatten on their own almost immediately. I did try working with a trowel and spiked roller, but they just created new peaks.

Firstly, does anyone have experience of this product? My aim was to use this as a final finish (once painted with garage floor paint).

Secondly, I now need to remedy the floor. I was thinking of a combination of grinding the high points, then laying another later of (wearing) SLC, however I can see that a scabbler / concrete planer might be the solution.

My concern with a scabbler is whether it will ever get to a flat surface if the existing surface is all over the place? I wasn't sure if such a machine gradually finds it's level, or whether it only works of a floor that is mostly flat, but has a few high spots.

Any recommendations on this? Thanks in advance...

 

[Deleted member 174758]

A push along/walk behind concrete planer is quite like a drum floor sander in operation and is not going to be able to get into the corners. To get into those you need a concrete grinder that looks like a 9in angle grinder (with appropriate extraction because they generste a sh*t load of dust). Personally, I think a walk behind grinder will be too large for such a small space. In any case the level you get is down to the skill of the operator - the machine itself is fairly dumb. Good for taking out high spots (providing you know where they are to start with) though

 

[MSB81]

Thanks - I did suspect that a large push machine would likely be too big for my little outbuilding. I'll see if any local tool hire companies offer concrete grinders, otherwise I'll probably need to buy a suitable angle-grinder disc and use with a big Karcher vacuum pipe strapped to my arm.

Beyond that, it anyone has any recommendations for a wearing screed that actually self-levels, please let me know!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

When i levelled my last workshop i was told that if you want self levelling then it won't wear well. So we screeded, then ground out the high spots with a concrete (angle) grinder - hired in as was the cyclone extractor that went with it because the grinder had a special, and very necessary, dust hood with hose connector and a cyclone extractor is necessary to remove the massive quantities of cloying fine concrete dust which would rapidly overwhelm a domestic vacuum.

 

[MSB81]

The company that sold it to me made no indication it would be any more difficult to lay vs. standard (non-wearing) SLC, which I have laid on a couple of occasions in the past. Nothing I have previously used was this poor in terms of self-levelling after pouring.

I'd like to try grinding back the floor and was thinking of one of these: https://www.hirestation.co.uk/tool-hire/Building/Floor-Planer-Hire/210110/. However, am I correct in thinking you need a flat "reference" area of floor to use as a starting point? If so, this might be a challenge for me - see below...

 

[Deleted member 174758]

...am I correct in thinking you need a flat "reference" area of floor to use as a starting point?

AFAIK yes. I thought the heavy wear compound you refer was designed to be smoothed out with a flooring bull float or the like

 

[MSB81]

In retrospect, a bull float certainly would've helped. I was led to believe a spiked roller would work well, but the compound seemed too thick when I tried to use it (despite being mixed as per instructions).

Wish I'd just painted the concrete slab and lived with the slightly uneven floor that was there before...

 

[dontbelieveawordofit]

if i’m not mistaken , from the finish, you mixed it too thick. I have not had any experience with this particular product , but have successfully broken up other levelling screeds quite easily with a wide sds chisel, if you wanted to remove it.