Anhydrite grades for Barking Riverside apartments
Barking Riverside sits on the former Barking Power Station land and is a joint venture between the Mayor of London and L&Q. Its new build flats need liquid screed over underfloor heating and acoustic layers between floors. Homes built since 2015 make up 12% of the borough's stock, and the riverside is now where most new homes are being built.
Apartment specifications usually name a calcium sulphate grade under the BS EN screed standard. C gives the strength in compression and F the strength in bending, each in N/mm2. The lightest grade, CA-C20-F4, is meant for homes with little traffic. The middle one, CA-C25-F5, is the standard for most dwellings, apartment blocks and offices. Harder working floors get CA-C30-F6.
Where a floor must dry sooner or sit thinner, the plans may name alpha hemihydrate instead, which works to its own data sheet.
Since the material shrinks so little, generous bays with only a handful of joints are possible, which suits open-plan flats. Bays and joints are set out in advance, and our team puts in the layers underneath, from insulation and membrane to the edge strip. How anhydrite screed works gives the background.
Calcium sulphate does not belong anywhere that will see water, so keep it out of showers, wet rooms and bin stores. Those areas are poured with a flowing cement product or done as traditional screed laid by hand.
Laitance, primers and moisture tests in Barking and Dagenham
While calcium sulphate dries, laitance, a weak film, builds up on its surface. Left there, it is what tile adhesive, LVT glue and levelling compound grab hold of, and the flooring can let go later. So after drying the film is sanded off, the dust cleared and a primer suited to calcium sulphate applied.
Moisture testing is stricter with this material. The moisture limit printed by many flooring manufacturers is lower for calcium sulphate than for cement. A hygrometer test, read against the flooring maker's own figure, decides when coverings can go down. Guessing from the date alone is how floors fail.
Drying can be helped. In flats with underfloor heating, the system can usually help dry the screed, starting around day 7 and turned up gradually. On a block with many flats, that allows a staged handover to the flooring contractor.
Our written handover covers both drying and laitance. If the sanding and priming are separate from the pour, our floor preparation service covers them. For a project in Tower Hamlets, see anhydrite screed in Tower Hamlets.
Anhydrite & Flow Screed prices in Barking and Dagenham
Liquid flowing screed (which includes anhydrite): £24 to £31 per m² supplied and laid (MyJobQuote, August 2026), so £960 to £1,240 for 40 m². MyJobQuote does not say whether these figures include VAT. See our floor screeding cost guide or screed calculator.
Who lays your anhydrite and flow screed in Barking and Dagenham
K & B Screeding’s own team, led by director Donatas Bardisevicius. Founded 2019, company 12298780.
See what customers say in our Google reviews and on our testimonials page.
Anhydrite & Flow Screed from Slough to Barking and Dagenham
Barking and Dagenham is about 33.1 miles east of our Slough base as the crow flies, with postcodes including IG11, RM9, RM8 and RM6. The nearest towns to it are Redbridge (3.5 miles), Newham (4 miles), Havering (4.2 miles) and Chigwell (5.3 miles).
More on anhydrite screed, part of our screeding services.
