Vinyl Floors,Carpet Tiles and Screeds.

Tel 07957 731995 E.mail: sales@specialistfloorsnortheast.co.uk Tel 0191 4178192

Vinyl flooring,safety flooring and carpet tiles,our 3 main areas of operation, all have in common the need for a good flat subfloor to enable them to be laid correctly.Vinyl flooring which encompasses Karndean,Amtico and Safety Flooring is usually only 2mm thick and over time, if laid on a poor subfloor,will eventually show all the indentations,lumps and bumps that exists below in the vinyl above.Likewise carpet tiles because of their very nature will show every different height imperfection in the floor at every junction with the next tile.To overcome these problems a layer of screed is used, usually 3mm thick if laid over concrete and a lot thinner if laid over plywood.This is generally regarded as a smoothing underlayment rather than a levelling screed.

Screeds themselves come in many forms but from a floor laying point of view it's usually either a water based screed or a latex based screed that is used and they're normally self levelling.Generally they're laid no more than 3 - 6mm mm thick when laying vinyl onto concrete.Any deeper than this can sometimes require special screeds and a different skill to build floors back to level.The floor layers screed for carpet tiles and vinyl flooring is only really considered tough enough when covered with a vinyl sheet or carpet tile.If it was left exposed it would eventually deteriorate.Thus it wouldn't be robust enough for a garage floor on its own even with floor paint.There are much stronger types of screed eg epoxy resin screeds which are relatively expensive and also modified polymer screeds which can be left as a finished surface without some form of resilient covering.Again this is usually carried out by a different craftsman.

Screeds for floor laying whether they are water based or latex based are manufactured by many different companies.Like any other product you really only get what you pay for.But if the underlying screed fails or breaks away from the subfloor then the finished floor above will look ugly and require replacement.Depending on where the floor is eg Hospitals,Clinics for vinyl and safety flooring or Luxury Karndean and Amtico flooring in upmarket domestic locations then this is to be avoided at all costs.In general terms there can be at least a 100% variation in the cost of similar products to use as a screed/underlayment.A good way to explain the differences is to listen to the tales of floor layers and their screed mixing buckets.If cheaper screeds are used and the bucket is not cleaned out immediately after use,then the next day or whenever it is needed again,it still only requires a bit of a battering with a hammer and the screed will crack away from the rubber mixing bucket and be reusable.If a top quality screed is used however and the bucket is not cleaned immediately after use then the bucket will either be not much use again or require lots of time spent on it trying to chip off the dry hardened screed.The moral of the story from our point of view is only to use superior screeding products,(we use Ardex ) and a lot of possible longer term problems can be immediately minimised.As you can image however it can make a massive difference in cost estimates for jobs,mainly because unlike carpet laying which generally has a form of underfelt,vinyl flooring and safety flooring always require a screed or smoothing underlayment to do the job correctly.

Tel 07957 731995 E.mail: sales@specialistfloorsnortheast.co.uk Tel 0191 4178192

We supply & fit Vinyl Planks,Vinyl Tiles and Vinyl Sheet in the form of Amtico,Amtico Spacia,Karndean,Polysafe,Altro and Tarkett throughout Newcastle,Gateshead,CountyDurham,Sunderland,Ponteland,Darass Hall,Northumberland,Morpeth,Alnwick,Tyne and Wear,Newcastle Upon Tyne.County Durham and Teeside.