Hi,
Background: I want to lay a wooden floor in my hall...
Issues:
The house was built 3 years ago and concrete floors laid in all rooms, the quality of the slabs is pretty poor and there is both a slope and a fair amount of unevenness in the hall especially where 2 slabs join about 2/3 of the way down the space. Area is about 5m x 1m
Solid wood floor is around 20mm thick and so quite a bit higher than the existing floor level already.
My original plan was to remove all skirting, chisel out bottom of door frames, paint hallway (needs doing anyway) and then lay the wood on the concrete and deal with the height step with appropriate threshold bars. Due to the totally uneven floor (which was previously hidden by carpet and underlay) this isn't an option as I will need to level the floor anyway.
Sooooo, in terms of levelling the general world consensus seems to be to use self levelling cement and go up but as the floor will already be too high compared to adjoining rooms I'm pretty reluctant to do this.
The idea:
As a result of this I am thinking (though some would argue I'm not!) can I take an inch or so off the top of the current slabs, pour a layer of self leveling compound to half this height and then lay the floor in this recess. My proposed approach would be to use a circular saw and diamond blade to criss cross cuts into the floor then rent a small jack hammer and break up the concrete between the cuts...
Is this totally crazy? Would it even be possible or do I risk damaging the whole slab? How much work is this going to be in reality (I know it'll be a lot but are we talking weeks of effort?)
Other issues I can see are:
Dust, I was hoping the breaking up rather than grinding or scrabbling would be the best of a bad bunch here.
The slope, I need to work out how big/real this is before I know if its an issue but obviously if the rest of the floors slope and I lay a level one in a recess that might create as many problems as it solves. Any bright ideas how I can measure this? I was thinking of using a clear hose filled with water and a ruler at each end might do the trick?
Really just looking for some sane advice on what I might be letting myself in for.
Thanks for your time,
Ralph
Background: I want to lay a wooden floor in my hall...
Issues:
The house was built 3 years ago and concrete floors laid in all rooms, the quality of the slabs is pretty poor and there is both a slope and a fair amount of unevenness in the hall especially where 2 slabs join about 2/3 of the way down the space. Area is about 5m x 1m
Solid wood floor is around 20mm thick and so quite a bit higher than the existing floor level already.
My original plan was to remove all skirting, chisel out bottom of door frames, paint hallway (needs doing anyway) and then lay the wood on the concrete and deal with the height step with appropriate threshold bars. Due to the totally uneven floor (which was previously hidden by carpet and underlay) this isn't an option as I will need to level the floor anyway.
Sooooo, in terms of levelling the general world consensus seems to be to use self levelling cement and go up but as the floor will already be too high compared to adjoining rooms I'm pretty reluctant to do this.
The idea:
As a result of this I am thinking (though some would argue I'm not!) can I take an inch or so off the top of the current slabs, pour a layer of self leveling compound to half this height and then lay the floor in this recess. My proposed approach would be to use a circular saw and diamond blade to criss cross cuts into the floor then rent a small jack hammer and break up the concrete between the cuts...
Is this totally crazy? Would it even be possible or do I risk damaging the whole slab? How much work is this going to be in reality (I know it'll be a lot but are we talking weeks of effort?)
Other issues I can see are:
Dust, I was hoping the breaking up rather than grinding or scrabbling would be the best of a bad bunch here.
The slope, I need to work out how big/real this is before I know if its an issue but obviously if the rest of the floors slope and I lay a level one in a recess that might create as many problems as it solves. Any bright ideas how I can measure this? I was thinking of using a clear hose filled with water and a ruler at each end might do the trick?
Really just looking for some sane advice on what I might be letting myself in for.
Thanks for your time,
Ralph
