Leveling concrete kitchen floor

[fuzzyducky]

Hi Chaps,

I'm currently looking at doing up my kitchen, and I'd like a little advice about leveling up a sloped concrete floor.

The concrete floor in question is in a single story extention that contains our kitchen, and adjoins flat wooden floorboards where the wall has been knocked through into the dining room. I can see what looks like a sheet type dpm in the brickwork outside, so assume there is a dpm in place under the concrete, but that is a guess.

The concrete area is about 2m square with a drop of about 3.5cm over the 2 meters away from the original structure. Essentially is's a steady run, from being level where it meets the wooden floor down to the 3.5mm at the wall.

The first thing I was thinking was; is it possible that the slope was intentional for any reason? I'm guessing it's just sloppy work, as I can't think why anyone would want a run on an internal floor.

Then I was wondering how I'm best to go about leveling it?

Previously it had a laminate flooring over the top, which had given way and broken up over the sloped area, where upon ripping it up I discovered it's just had extra bits of the green paper mulch underlay ripped up and chocked inplace to try and level it.

What I'm intending to do is put lino over the kitchen area, and then have carpet in the dining room area, with a strip inbetween.

Can I level this with the self leveling compounds from wickes etc, or would the part where my concrete & wooden floors meet be too shallow to use such products?

Also how hard a task is it to get these type of products level? I don't want to end up with something so uneven I can feel it under my feet!

Thanks

 

[ree]

Sheet vinyl will show every imperfection - the backing surface/floor must be smooth. Any moisture in the concrete will blow bubbles in the FF.
Where exactly do you see "a sheet type dpm"?

Where do your appliances and units come into this, and where is your back door located. Do you have skirtings fixed?

What about the threshold at the knock-through to the wood floor?

Can you see why we constantly ask OP's for pics?

30mm over 2m is a disgrace for a professional builder.

 

[fuzzyducky]

Sheet vinyl will show every imperfection - the backing surface/floor must be smooth. Any moisture in the concrete will blow bubbles in the FF.
Where exactly do you see "a sheet type dpm"?

What I see is a black line in the mortor of the brickwork outside, where I'd usually expect a line of blue bricks, I'm fairly sure this is the dpc in the wall - it was just an optimistic assumption that perhaps it also goes under the concrete floor.

My main concern is getting it level, if there are any minor imperfections I was thinking I could always put plywood down before the lino as I have done where we have imperfect floorboards elsewhere.

Where do your appliances and units come into this, and where is your back door located. Do you have skirtings fixed?

What about the threshold at the knock-through to the wood floor?

I'm intending to have removed all the appliances beforehand, so am looking at just getting the floor level, also the back door isn't adjacent to the floor to be leveled so we're ok there. Skirtings are all wonky anyway, I'll be ripping them out.

Not sure what you're asking about the threshold to the wood floor at the knock through. The cement meets the wood floor and is almost level there, but I'm worried whatever I put down would end up so thin it'd just crack off.

Can you see why we constantly ask OP's for pics?

30mm over 2m is a disgrace for a professional builder.

Yes, pics are a good idea I'll try and take some. I agree, none of the past work on my house appears to have been done by anyone even close to professional; all done on the cheap.

 

[henry1]

As far as I'm aware, the surface for lino needs to be flat, not level.
Level means horizontal.
Flat means devoid of bumps and holes.
So you could have a steep slope on a flat floor and the lino would still go nicely on top of it.

 

[fuzzyducky]

As far as I'm aware, the surface for lino needs to be flat, not level.
Level means horizontal.
Flat means devoid of bumps and holes.
So you could have a steep slope on a flat floor and the lino would still go nicely on top of it.

Hmm, I'm guessing you've not really understood. Of course I can lay lino on a sloped floor, but I want a level floor, then I'm going to put lino on it.

So, once I've leveled it (because I want it level, not because it is physically impossible to lay lino on a slope) I want to lay lino on it and not have a bumpy surface.

All that is besides the point. I'm looking for advice on the best way to go about leveling my sloped floor, any advice on that would be appreciated.

 

[henry1]

OK, I see now. I thought before that you could keep the slope and lay the vinyl over it as long as it is flat. But you want it level.

So to give you advice, I can see no other way than using a self-levelling compound.
I recently levelled small areas of my floor and it was a much bigger job than I expected to get it perfectly flat. Yours sound like a very big and expensive job if you have to cover the whole floor with a big thickness at one end. The compound doesn't flow exactly level like water as it is too thick and dries quickly. Only in the beginning can it run freely.

The good news is that the self-levelling compound can achieve very thin layers, about the thickness of lino or less. I bought an expensive self-levelling compound that stated it could be used for very thin layers but ran out near the end. I had an old (nearly 2 years, kept outside) and cheap one left behind. I used it and it worked very well. It was much cheaper and if I had known, I would have used it from the beginning.

I hope this helps this time.