Awkward bases in older Sevenoaks kitchens and bathrooms
Houses built before the Second World War make up a sizeable part of Sevenoaks, and a refit in one of them rarely starts on a clean slab. Lift the old lino in a back kitchen and there may be quarry tiles bedded decades ago. Pull up a bathroom carpet upstairs and there are floorboards, usually cupped, gapped and patched where pipes were run. Neither surface will carry vinyl or LVT without every edge showing through it.
Latex copes with both, as long as the base is prepared first. Old quarry or ceramic tiles that are still stuck fast are degreased, any loose ones are cut out and filled, and a primer made for dense, glazed surfaces goes on before the compound. Timber is a different case. We never pour latex straight onto bare boards, because they move with the seasons and would crack it. The boards are screwed down, then overboarded with flooring grade plywood fixed at close centres, and the latex goes over the plywood.
Terraced houses account for 17% of Sevenoaks homes, and their narrow ground floor rooms often hide this kind of layered history. Flats in converted buildings are another 4%, and an upper floor in a converted house is nearly always timber, so overboarding comes first there too.
Because the layer is thin, it adds very little height. That helps where a new floor has to meet an existing hall threshold, a stair nosing or a carpet in the next room without a ramp. If the base turns out to be crumbly rather than just uneven, our floor preparation service deals with it before any compound goes down.
When latex is not enough in Sevenoaks homes
Latex is a finishing layer, not a repair. It will not stop boards that bounce underfoot, it will not hold back rising damp, and it cannot pull a floor that is badly out of level into line. Each of those has to be dealt with underneath first.
Springy timber needs extra noggins, new joists or replacement boards before the plywood goes on. A damp solid floor, likely in a house older than modern membranes, may need a surface damp proof treatment or a rebuilt floor, so we take a moisture reading before priming. A floor that falls several centimetres across a large kitchen is past what a few millimetres can fix, and the right answer there is a new screed, often a traditional screed laid by hand.
Calcium sulphate bases need their own care. If the floor under a Sevenoaks refit turns out to be anhydrite, its weak surface skin is sanded away and a matching primer applied before any latex touches it; skip that and the bond fails.
Whether the house is in Riverhead, Kippington, Hollybush or out towards Sevenoaks Common, those checks happen before we price. Where the question is general flatness across a whole floor rather than a tricky base, our Sevenoaks floor levelling page explains the flatness classes. Latex is the narrower tool: thin, able to sit on plywood, and suited to resilient finishes such as safety flooring, rubber and sheet vinyl.
How we price latex screed in Sevenoaks
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 Sevenoaks
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 Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks is about 40.4 miles east-south-east of our Slough base as the crow flies, with postcodes including TN13 and TN15. The nearest towns to it are Tonbridge (6.4 miles), Oxted (8.5 miles), Swanley (8.8 miles) and Bromley (9.6 miles).
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.
