Self levelling my kitchen

skintsaver_2

Hi all

My kitchen floor is awful and we have dips everywhere in it

when we bought the house we couldn't afford to do it at the time due to other renovations that needed to be carried out

Now 5 years down the line I want the floor done and my OH has said its going to be too much work

It is a hard job to carry out?

would i need to completely empty my kitchen?

Could I leave appliances in place and work up to them?

Is patching up the holes an option instead of doing the full floor?

A lot of questions i know but im grateful for any replies

Davesnave

This is the sort of question where a picture would save a lot of guesswork.

You have given lots of background, but no hard information - for example:

the size of the room
what the floor is made of
how large the 'dips' are
what you plan to put on the new surface

I know I haven't answered your question, but those who can will have the same problem grappling with these unknowns.

It strikes me, however, that if you are having a new floor covering, laying self-levelling compound could be part of the package if DIY bothers your OH.

moneyistooshorttomention

Also wondering about what the floor is made of.

If it's concrete - then...yep...self-levelling compound as Dave says. Had it done in my current kitchen.

If it's wood planks or chipboard - then we'll have to think on again as to what needs doing.

skintsaver_2

The room is approx 3mx5m

From what I remember the flooring underneath is made of concrete and the dips vary in from from 5mm to 15mm. We haven't taken the current flooring up yet as we are in the planning stages

Going to cover the flooring with vinyl flooring or tiles depending on what I like

DIY doesn't bother my OH it's just wondering what is the best to do as he thinks it may be too much work with us living in it and then not having a kitchen for a few days or however long it takes to set

moneyistooshorttomention

I was told "24 hours" as I recall by the (duff) workman that did that in my house. Bear in mind that, in the event, he's someone that isn't very good at his job (not nearly as good as he personally thinks he is:cool:) - so that time may or may not be accurate.

The time it takes for the concrete to dry though will doubtless vary according to thickness - and there are figures there somewhere on the Internet that lay down a table of how long drying time is according to thickness.

pollypenny

We used have used self-levelling compound in our house, where it was mainly missing Marley tiles. However, it also worked in my parents' house on a flagged floored with considerable ups and down.

Davesnave

Can't understand MITSTM's reference to concrete???

Self-levelling compound will cure in a day (hours if it's not thick) so the normal procedure would be to lay it one day and add the floor covering on the next day.

We had our living room levelled for LVT and as there were holes up to 30mm deep I got someone else to do it. Took all of 2 hours for that bit. Same with the kitchen; both big rooms with horrible damage to floors. Easily sorted.

FreeBear

I used Mapei Ultraplan SLC from Screwfix to do my kitchen floor - Can walk on it after about four hours, but it is best to wait longer.

The OP could put SLC down without completely clearing the kitchen, although it would be best to remove the appliances. Take the plinths off the units, build a dam between the feet (stick some strips of ½x1" timber down with some cheap mastic), then pour the SLC. The plinths will need to be trimmed down afterwards, but that would probably need doing with the new flooring anyway.

tacpot12

My experience with SLC is that it quite difficult to get good results as a DIY'er. Getting the flooring company to do the work could produce a better result, if they have a lot of experience with laying SLC.

antilles

We used self levelling compound on my kitchen a couple of years ago. The house had old lino tiles in, when we ripped them up there were all sorts of holes in the floor and it was a complete mess. Found it very simple to use and gave excellent results, as long as you use enough it fills the holes and virtually levels itself once spread out. We ended up removing the kitchen and appliances, tiled the floor, then reinstalled the kitchen. Think we bought it from Wickes.