Refitting 1930s rooms on the Northfields Estate
Latex screed starts as a cement based powder, but it is stirred into a latex liquid rather than water, and that is why it copes with surfaces a plain compound would not grip. It is laid thin, usually a few millimetres, purely to make a sound base smooth.
A kitchen or bathroom in a house of that age may well have been refitted more than once. Each refit may have left a layer behind: tiles stuck to the slab, a skim of old adhesive, a patch where a pipe was rerouted. If the tiles are firmly bonded and the adhesive is thin and sound, there is no need to dig it all out. We clean the surface, prime it to suit, and spread latex over it, giving the new sheet vinyl, LVT, rubber or safety flooring an even surface.
Upstairs, bathrooms usually sit on timber. Latex is never put straight onto floorboards, because the boards move and the compound would crack along each joint. Instead the boards are screwed down, covered with flooring grade plywood fixed at close centres, and latexed over.
Council tax bands A to C cover 67% of Dunstable's homes, and in many refits the budget is better spent on the new floor than on breaking out an old one that is still sound. Latex lets that happen without raising the floor noticeably. If the room is level but needs a broader skim, our page on self levelling compound for Dunstable floors explains the difference.
Primers, damp and limits across Dunstable
Latex only works over a base that is sound, dry and roughly flat already. Before we price it we check all three.
Post-war semis on the Downside or Lake District estate can still sit on an old sand and cement screed that has cracked or gone hollow, and latex laid over that will fail along with it. The loose areas need cutting out and repairing the old screed first. Bumps, old mortar and paint can be taken down by grinding the concrete back.
Damp is the first stop sign. Latex will not hold back moisture rising through a solid floor, so we take a reading, and a floor that fails needs the damp sorted before anything else.
Springy boards are a second. Plywood over a bouncing floor still bounces, and the latex cracks.
Primers are matched to the base. Tiles need a primer that bonds to a glazed face, concrete takes another, and a calcium sulphate screed always has its laitance sanded off and a compatible primer applied before latex goes near it.
We work throughout the town, including Beecroft, Honeywick, Churchend, Middle End and Moor End. The same approach applies next door with latex screed in Houghton Regis.
How we price latex screed in Dunstable
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 Dunstable
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 Dunstable
On the map, Dunstable sits north of Slough, about 25.1 miles from our base in a straight line (postcodes including LU6 and LU5), next to Houghton Regis (1.3 miles), Luton (4.6 miles), Leighton Buzzard (6.2 miles) and Flitwick (8.1 miles).
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.
