I have a house built in 2013, where the floor construction is beam and block, approx 120mm PIR insulation and then about 60mm screed on top.
In preparation for replacing the hall carpet with engineered wood, I have cleared the old carpet and underlay away and uncovered two possible issues.
1. In once corner of the room, tapping the screed sounds hollow. It is not cracked. Stepping on it feels as though it compresses (more than the usual B&B bounce). Though tapping right at the edges adjacent to the wall sounds solid.
As the screed is on the insulation board, it was never to be bonded. As it's in the corner of the room and will be covered by furniture and rarely stepped on, it is possibly just a bit thin and ok to leave it as it is?
2. There is a crack in the screed a few millimetres wide. It runs in broadly a straight line that is underneath a steel that spans from the central stairwell to the front of the house to suspend the first floor, but is also on the line where a dwarf wall runs directly underneath and is where separate beams of the floor construction meet.
Continuing that line into the adjacent WC, either the tiles themselves or the grout between them is cracked but only by a millimetre. That happened some time ago, perhaps somewhere between 2015 and 2018, but has become no worse since, including after adding an extension in 2019 that involved taking walls out and replacing by steels elsewhere in the house.
Is this just from some settlement from the original house build and so unlikely to move further. I cannot think there is any benefit to filling the gap, as movement strong enough to break screed is not going to be thwarted by anything stuck to both sides of that gap.
Given the WC crack has not widened over the last few years, is it fair to assume the building has now settled and unlikely to move further, or should there be anything to worry about?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
In preparation for replacing the hall carpet with engineered wood, I have cleared the old carpet and underlay away and uncovered two possible issues.
1. In once corner of the room, tapping the screed sounds hollow. It is not cracked. Stepping on it feels as though it compresses (more than the usual B&B bounce). Though tapping right at the edges adjacent to the wall sounds solid.
As the screed is on the insulation board, it was never to be bonded. As it's in the corner of the room and will be covered by furniture and rarely stepped on, it is possibly just a bit thin and ok to leave it as it is?
2. There is a crack in the screed a few millimetres wide. It runs in broadly a straight line that is underneath a steel that spans from the central stairwell to the front of the house to suspend the first floor, but is also on the line where a dwarf wall runs directly underneath and is where separate beams of the floor construction meet.
Continuing that line into the adjacent WC, either the tiles themselves or the grout between them is cracked but only by a millimetre. That happened some time ago, perhaps somewhere between 2015 and 2018, but has become no worse since, including after adding an extension in 2019 that involved taking walls out and replacing by steels elsewhere in the house.
Is this just from some settlement from the original house build and so unlikely to move further. I cannot think there is any benefit to filling the gap, as movement strong enough to break screed is not going to be thwarted by anything stuck to both sides of that gap.
Given the WC crack has not widened over the last few years, is it fair to assume the building has now settled and unlikely to move further, or should there be anything to worry about?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
