Matching an existing heated floor in Great Notley
Building a garden room or extension onto a newer house with underfloor heating raises a practical question: how does the new floor meet the old one? It has to finish at exactly the same level, carry its own heating circuit and warm up at a similar rate, or the join will show as a step, a crack or a cold strip.
We start from the level of the floor already there. We check the finished level in the house and plan the new insulation, pipes and screed depth backwards from it. Pumped screed must sit 25mm or more above the pipes, which normally comes to 45 to 50mm overall. Hand-laid needs roughly 45mm above them and makes the build thicker. If the existing floor is itself a flowing screed, pumped liquid screed for the extension tends to give the closest match in depth and heat response.
Where the new and old floors meet, a movement joint is planned so the two screeds can expand and contract independently. Tiles or stone laid across that line need a joint above it too.
The pipes are not ours to fit. Laying and pressure testing them falls to your heating engineer, and before we pour we look over the insulation, membrane, edge strip and pipe clips. If your installer is not providing the insulation and membrane, we can. For whole-floor projects in older homes, the sand and cement screed in Braintree page covers retrofitting after a floor is dug out.
Heat-up schedules for new Braintree heated floors
Old house or new, a heated floor has to be warmed slowly the first time. Over calcium sulphate, the system can normally come on about a week after the pour; over sand and cement, give it 21 days at least. After that, nudge the flow temperature up in small steps of a few degrees over several days, and hold it before running at full heat. Going too fast risks cracking the screed or opening the joint with the existing floor.
Those steps come from us on paper, so the heating engineer and your flooring fitter are working to one plan. For a calcium sulphate floor, the heating can also force dry the screed once it is ready, which is covered in our guide on how long screed takes to dry.
On a retrofit in an older terrace near the centre or in Bocking, floor height is usually the limit. Adding insulation, pipes and a screed to a floor laid on earth means digging deep enough to fit everything under the existing thresholds.
For a heated floor in liquid screed, the published 2026 UK price is £20 to £35 per m². Neighbouring towns are priced on the same basis, including underfloor heating screed in Witham.
Underfloor Heating Screed prices in Braintree
Liquid screed over underfloor heating: £20 to £35 per m² supplied and laid (trade2base, June 2026), so £700 to £1,230 for 35 m². trade2base gives these figures excluding VAT. See our floor screeding cost guide or screed calculator.
Who lays your underfloor heating screed in Braintree
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.
Underfloor Heating Screed from Slough to Braintree
Braintree is about 56.7 miles east-north-east of our Slough base as the crow flies, with postcodes including CM7 and CM77. The nearest towns to it are Halstead (5.7 miles), Witham (6.6 miles), Great Dunmow (8.1 miles) and Chelmsford (10.3 miles).
More on underfloor heating screed, part of our screeding services.