Awkward old floors in Luton terraces and semis
Strip the vinyl out of a kitchen in an older Luton house and the floor beneath rarely matches from one wall to the other. Part may be original quarry tiles, part a later concrete patch where a pipe was rerouted, and part a film of black adhesive from two floors ago. Thin finishes copy every one of those edges. Latex screed bridges them.
The name puzzles people, because nothing about it resembles a full screed. It combines two parts on site, a cement based powder and a latex liquid used where water would normally go, and it bonds to whatever sound surface is below. It goes down thin, typically a few millimetres, and only over a base that is already sound.
Each kind of base is checked in its own way. Quarry or ceramic tiles can stay if they are firmly bonded; we tap across them, and any that sound hollow come up so the gap can be filled. Old adhesive can stay only where it is thin, hard and well stuck. Bare concrete that is uneven but solid takes latex directly once it is clean and primed.
Damp is the question in the oldest houses. A ground floor laid before membranes were usual can let moisture through, and latex does nothing to stop it. A hygrometer reading comes before any compound, and a floor that fails needs rebuilding rather than covering, as our Luton sand and cement screed page explains. Where glue or paint is too thick to leave, it is taken off first by grinding the concrete in Luton.
Overboarded timber and thin finishes across Luton
Latex never goes straight onto bare floorboards. Boards move as people walk across them and as the seasons change, and a thin cement layer on top would crack along every joint. Where a floor is timber, as upstairs rooms and many flat conversions are, the boards are first screwed down tight, then overboarded with flooring grade plywood, and the latex goes over the plywood. If the boards are springy before that stage, the boards or joists need fixing, because no compound can stiffen a floor.
The finishes that need this smoothness are the thin and flexible ones: sheet vinyl and LVT in kitchens, safety flooring in a bathroom, lino, rubber and carpet. A ridge or screw head that would vanish under a thick tile shows through all of them within weeks.
The service runs across the whole town, whether the address is in Biscot, Hart Hill, Park Town, Lewsey Farm or Bramingham Park.
Latex is not the answer for a floor that is badly out of level. That needs a deeper levelling layer or a new screed, which the Luton floor levelling page sets out along with the flatness classes. Cracked or broken areas of screed are patched first through our screed repairs service.
How we price latex screed in Luton
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 Luton
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 Luton
As the crow flies, our yard in Slough is about 25.9 miles from Luton, which lies to the north-north-east. Postcodes here include LU1, LU3, LU4 and LU2, and Dunstable (4.6 miles), Houghton Regis (4.7 miles), Harpenden (5.1 miles) and Hitchin (7.6 miles) are close by.
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.
