Son recently bought a house that lady had lived in for 50+ years, floor covered in lino and carpet, sign of dampness under lino but nothing that would cause major concerns. Original floor was quarry tiles on clinker backfill. Have dugout floor to 100mm depth and concreted with dpm sheet beneath. Cheap and cheerful as his plan is to rent it out in the future so not to fussed about insulation. 80 year managed without it or any central heating for 50 years. House built 1910 or so.
Best way to resolve damp kitchen floor
- Thread starter Sprocker
- Start date
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Do you trowel the concrete then when it’s gone off a bit? Skim of self levelling to finish it off?
We tamped it off to a finished level from 100 x 50 guide rails placed along the side of the room set 300mm from the walls. Whilst we trowelled smoothish as we went along I will admit that this technique was not totally satisfactory as concrete finishing needs to be done a few hours after laying. In hindsight I would have concreted the 300mm channels off the wall 1st (made them 500mm?) and laid the main concrete a few days after this and tamped off the these side channels, doing it this way would have made the concreting/tamping easier and done away with the requirement of lifting out the guide rails and infilling with concrete as the concrete went off. It would also enable a final scrape/tamp to be done at the end of the job. At the end of the day its all about the amount of help you have, the skill level within that help and getting the concrete laid before it goes off. At the finish(4hrs later) I was completly f****d and ended up at A&E 2 days later with cement burns to the knees (be warned) Whilst the end result was just about acceptable for laying laminate floor on with 6mm underlay in future a rough finish concrete with 60mm screed laid in bays is the way ahead for me although as far as I'm concerned there is not going to be any future concrete slabs and my son's idea of buiding a property portfolio is down to him.
Sounds like a bit of SLC would have sorted it if it wasn’t far off. I’ve also trowel finished a slab, hard work, but was fairly pleased with it. I was trowelling it hours after it was tamped as soon as it would take my weight on a bit of foil board. That was before the walls were built tho 
I’ve also done screeding which was a complete ball ache and still needed SLC. Fair play to screeders. Wouldn’t fancy it again unless a small area.
I’ve also done screeding which was a complete ball ache and still needed SLC. Fair play to screeders. Wouldn’t fancy it again unless a small area.
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