Latex over timber in Royal Leamington Spa conversions
The Georgian New Town north of the River Leam takes its character from the Regency architecture around Lansdowne Circus, Clarendon Square and the Parade. Across the town, Regency and Victorian townhouses are the buildings that get divided into flats, and reworking a flat inside one tends to mean timber upper floors, and timber is where latex needs the most care.
Floorboards shrink, swell and flex. A layer of compound only a few millimetres thick cannot ride that movement, so latex never goes straight onto bare boards. The order is: screw down any loose or creaking boards, check the floor does not bounce, then fix flooring grade plywood over the top with closely spaced screws. The plywood gives a stiff, continuous surface. The latex itself, a cement based powder blended with a latex liquid in place of water, fills the screw heads and sheet joints and leaves a smooth face for the finish.
That finish is usually something thin. Sheet vinyl in a kitchen, LVT across a living room or a safety floor in a shower room will all show the outline of every plywood joint if the latex is left out.
How much sound passes between flats is a design question, settled with the building's designer before overboarding begins, because acoustic layers change the build-up and the finished height. Where the lowest floor is solid rather than timber, latex can go over sound concrete or firmly bonded old tiles once the right primer is down. If the timber is past saving, it is repaired or replaced before any overlay, and stripping old coverings comes under our floor preparation service.
Primers, damp and limits in Royal Leamington Spa
Every base gets a primer chosen for it. Plywood, old ceramic or quarry tiles, concrete and sand and cement each call for a different product, and a calcium sulphate screed must have its laitance sanded off and be primed before latex touches it. Skip that and the compound can come away in sheets.
Damp is checked before anything is mixed. A pre-1919 house may have been built with no membrane under its ground floor, and a thin latex skin will not stop moisture coming up through the slab. A high reading means the floor has to be dealt with properly, sometimes with a new sand and cement floor over a membrane, before any smoothing layer goes on.
Latex is also no way to rescue a floor that is badly out of level. It smooths; it does not build up a room that drops away towards one wall. For that, read our page on levelling uneven Leamington floors, which covers flatness classes and thicker compounds. A raised ridge of hard old glue or a lip in the concrete can be taken down first by diamond grinding. About 2 miles off, Warwick has its own page on latex screed in Warwick.
How we price latex screed in Royal Leamington Spa
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 Royal Leamington Spa
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 Royal Leamington Spa
Royal Leamington Spa is about 64.9 miles north-west of our Slough base as the crow flies, with postcodes including CV32, CV34 and CV31. The nearest towns to it are Warwick (2.3 miles), Kenilworth (3.9 miles), Coventry (8.1 miles) and Stratford-upon-Avon (10 miles).
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.
