New Build Screeding?

henrygregory

Hello there,
My new build house is around 3.5 years old. 
When I moved in, we had carpet up and downstairs already pre-installed and then some kind of vinyl in the bathrooms and kitchens.
I am keen to get something like a luxury vinyl tile installed downstairs as carpet can be a bit of a pain downstairs. 

I have got one quote and it is around £2400 to do the whole downstairs with a Karndean LVT however the company are stating that they would need to screed the downstairs. 
As this is my first place, I was not aware of this. I thought they would just put down the new tiles or vinyl. 

Can anyone tell me how this works if you are living in the house? I don't have a garage or anywhere. I looked online and some sites say it can take almost a month for the screed to be dry enough that you could place furniture back on it. Is that really true?! 

If so, I am not going to be able to do it as I don't have anywhere to put furniture for that long. Presumably the kitchen and bathroom would be ok as they already have some kind of vinyl down? 

Thanks in advance. 

Doozergirl

It's not screed, it's self levelling compound and it doesn't take very long to dry.  

TELLIT01

Even self levelling compound will presumably require all the furniture to be removed from the rooms.  Depending on the layout of the property it may not be possible to do one area at a time.  The house my nephew lives in is a 3 year old 'new build' and completely open plan downstairs.

FreeBear

Doozergirl said:

It's not screed, it's self levelling compound and it doesn't take very long to dry. 

6 to 12 hours to dry, 24 hours before you should walk on SLC. But the surface can be scuffed when moving around on it, so best not to until the tiles are down.

henrygregory

Thanks guys. If it is just a day, then I can put everything in the garden, but was getting worried when I saw some of the things online about it taking 28 days to dry.

It might prove difficult to get upstairs for bedtime as the stairs are in the middle of the room with no other way to get up.

FreeBear

A few scraps of hardboard laid out to walk on will protect the surface. Just wait until it is dry before putting anything down.

TELLIT01

Good luck on finding a 24 hour window guaranteed to have no rain.

Grenage

TELLIT01 said:

Good luck on finding a 24 hour window guaranteed to have no rain.

Tarpaulin