Smoothing awkward bases in Crowborough kitchens and bathrooms
Take up a tired kitchen floor and you rarely find one clean surface. Part of it may be ceramic tiles that never budged, part may be bare concrete where a cupboard stood, and there may be a strip of filler where a pipe was rerouted. Each has a different texture and level, and a sheet vinyl or LVT floor laid directly over them would show every change within weeks.
Latex is made for that mix. Because the powder is gauged with latex liquid instead of water, the cured layer is slightly flexible and holds well on surfaces that a plain compound might not, such as glazed tiles and plywood. It is spread a few millimetres thick, enough to fill grout lines, bury screw heads and close small hollows, and it sets with a smooth face ready for adhesive.
Bathrooms upstairs are often timber. Here the boards are screwed down, any squeaks cured, and flooring grade plywood fixed over the top at close centres. Latex then goes over the plywood, never onto bare boards, which move enough to crack a thin layer along every joint.
Preparation decides whether it lasts. Loose tiles come out and the holes are filled, grease and polish are cleaned off, and the base is primed with the product that suits it. Sound old adhesive can sometimes stay if it is compatible; brittle or patchy glue is ground away first by our concrete floor grinding team.
Whether the job is in Alderbrook, Steel Cross, Blackness or Crowborough Warren, the approach is the same: inspect the bare floor, then decide.
Where latex will not help Crowborough floors
Latex is a finishing coat, and it fails when asked to do structural work. Three conditions rule it out until they are fixed.
Damp comes first. An original solid floor in one of the town's older Victorian or Edwardian houses may have no membrane at all. Spread latex over it and the moisture still reaches the underside of the new vinyl, which then lifts. The lasting answer is to dig the floor out and relay it with a membrane, explained on our sand and cement screed page for Crowborough.
Movement is second. Springy boards crack thin compound however good the mix. The joists or boards are repaired and overboarded before anything is poured.
Level is third. Latex will not correct a floor that runs well downhill from one wall to the other. That calls for a general levelling job or a new screed, and our Crowborough floor levelling page explains how to tell which.
Newer estate homes in town can have screeds with hollow or cracked patches, and those need screed repairs before any smoothing coat. If the base turns out to be a calcium sulphate screed, it is always sanded to remove laitance and then primed before latex goes on.
How we price latex screed in Crowborough
A fixed written price within 24 hours, once we know the area and the base. See our floor screeding cost guide.
Who lays your latex screed in Crowborough
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.
Latex Screed from Slough to Crowborough
On the map, Crowborough sits south-east of Slough, about 47.8 miles from our base in a straight line (postcodes including TN6), next to Royal Tunbridge Wells (6.7 miles), Uckfield (6.9 miles), East Grinstead (8.6 miles) and Tonbridge (10.3 miles).
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.