I have a typical early 1970's semi with a brick built extension on the back , which used to be divided with sliding glass doors.
Layout here:
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7953/6021385447448646850
The section at the back is approximately one inch higher than the rest of t he house, due to (I presume) the under-floor heating in the extension, and is tiled with tiles that are a different colour to the rest of the ground f loor.
What I want to do is lay engineered wood flooring throughout the lounge and extension to basically tie it into one room.
What I'm hoping to avoid is having to bring up the large lounge section to be the same height as the extension.
Am I right in assuming that the copper pipes for the under-floor heating wi ll be in some form of screed ?
How hard would it be to remove that screed to bring the floor back down to the level of the rest of the house. Is this even feasible ?
Plastic pipes probably... And yes, usually buried in screed.
If it were me, for 1", I would engineer a tapered threshold, say 6" wide along the change in height. Do it in matching wood to the main flooring and make it a feature. It will also act as an expansion zone for your flooring.
Take a solid plank of wood of the right type (I used oak). Take an electric plane - mark it up and spend a couple of hours with the plane and the sander until it's right.
Varnish it all over 2-3 times with a thin varnish (I used Treatex oil) before laying and screw down. Plug the screw holes with plugs of the same material. Give the top one more coat. It will be waterproof and pretty wear resistant.
1:6 ramp is not a trip hazard - I have some steeper ones in various internal doorways due to adding 12mm insulation under engineered flooring. It has never been a problem and there is nothing to catch your foot on so quite safe in practise.
I can put up a couple of pics later if you want to see how it looks.
These all interface between differing floor surfaces, but the same thing would work in your case - just a bit of a wider strip:
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All have a change in level of 5-15mm.
Last one (white tiles), the threshold is flat, but rounded at the front as it was the 5mm correction. The others are all sloped with a little rounding.
In your case I would suggest fully sloped.
The strip behind the threshold bar is a floating trim strip for the engineered flooring covering a 10-ish mm expansion gap.
A trick I found was to put little bits of doubled over underlay foam between the edge of the engineered planks and the cover strip - this keeps the cover strip tight to the threshold but allows for movement.
is almost exactly how it is now, even down to the colour of the tiles
I'm not sure that will look right to be honest, I really want it to be an unbroken run for the length of the two rooms, to maximise the impression of space.
Again, how practical this is I don't know.
Would the screed be layered on top of a concrete plinth ?
In the former case the screed is usually 50mm but can be less if SBR modified or laid as a poured screed (a proper selv-levelling compound). Poured is not common outside of large commercial/hospitals.
In the former case, the screed must be 75mm or more. If you plane that down, it will become too weak.
Also the planing operation will require either a heavy specialist machine = very very messy. Or about a million years with an SDS. Either way, planing the screed down is impractical and you should forget that immediately. I have had to grind 10mm off small sections (3m2 in odd patches) of my floor to correct a horrendous screeding job and it was nasty. I was also not aiming to get it level at that stage as I knew I would have to use levelling compound over the whole lot anyway.
It would be less trouble to raise the screed on the lower section.
That could be done with an SBR 3:1 sand:cement screed following the proper regime (something most builders will never have heard of so unless they are a specialist flooring contractor with commercial experience, assume they are lying if they say they know how to do it).
Or a poured screed is possible but only really practical if you can get a mixer/pump lorry to mix what you need on site and deliver via hose. Usually that's used for many many 10's to 100's m2 so not sure if you'd find anyone for a room's worth.
Google for F Ball Stopgap 300 and you should find some videos.
Your remaining solution is to lay filler sheet on the lower floor - eg ply or OSB and lay the engineered boards over that. This is what I would do barring my original idea.
I wanted to do this between 2 rooms too. But the flooring - laminate - instructions said to break at thresholds and leave a gap. Not sure if this affects you, though.
Many thanks for the detailed reply, it was very helpful ! For some daft reason I couldn't figure out how to find my original post on a mobile phone.
Ply on top of the existing tiles ?
I think once the tiles and adhesive on the higher section are removed the difference in height shouldn't be much more than 5 mil, so maybe self levelling compound will be sufficient. The wisdom of putting that on top of tiles though ?
Yes. Screw it down with stainless or brass screws.
How big is the floor and what are the existing tiles?
Totally fine if the tiles are not glazed - eq quarry tiles or pure stone.
If they are, it should be OK if you break the graze (scratch it to death).
Make sure the tiles have no wax or sealer on the surface. Clean, clean and use a suitable solvent (I'm not sure, someone should be able to advise.).
I can vouch for this:
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You prime the floor with this:
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Can be done the day before.
Then mix all the Stopgap in a very big tub or two with a plaster's mixer (hire it). A whisk on a drill will do a single bag but not a 2 or 3 bag mix.
The tubs are in the middle of the floor to be levelled.
Wear wellies. Turn tubs over. Scrape and remove.
Go over with a spiked roller (important):
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to move it around and wet the floor. This will keep it mobile and remove the air. At 5mm application, Stopgap *does* self level if you keep it mobile for about 15mins. You should be able to see by the daylight bouncing off the surface - think millpond.
You have 20-25mins max to mix, pour, roller and get out. Do not do in full sun. Follow the instructions precisely, especially water quantities. Go for the max amount of water permitted, not a drop more.
Back out of the room and roller your footprints out.
Leave for an hour and it should be hard. Give it a few hours and you can definitely walk on it.
Unless you only need 2 bags, it is a 2 man job - at least to have help mixing and cleaning the buckets while you roller it out.
Make sure there are no gaps around the edges it can escape - it is
*very* mobile. Bit of wood foamed in across the doorways and covered with masking tape seemed to work quite well.
I used 5 bags in one pour to top off this:
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Pics 1+2 are the crappy subfloor I had after grinding and stabilising with SBR.
Ignore the ali rails - I had to put another self levelling compound down sections to get it basically flat +/- few mm.
Pic 3 is after an Epoxy DPM. Ignoring the actual epoxy, this is roughly where you are starting from I think?
Pic 4 is a single pour of Stopgap 300 over the P131 priming over the red epoxy. This was within 2mm over the whole floor. The tiler was very impressed!
It is possible to use wood or metal rails like I did to do the Stopgap
300 in several sections - but it is so much better to do it on one if you can.
This is one of those jobs that in my head seemed quite simple, but in reality seems way above my competence level. I'm rather glad I checked here first, so thank you :)
I'll get a tile or two up in the elevated section I see what the sub floor is like, and how close to level it actually is.
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