Pipe cover for Towcester's heated floors
Underfloor heating only works as well as the screed laid over it. It covers the pipes, stores the heat and spreads it across the room. Get the depth wrong and the floor cracks along the pipe lines or heats in stripes.
Pipes under a liquid screed want at least 25mm on top, normally giving 45 to 50mm of screed in all. With sand and cement the pipes need about 45mm over them, and the floor gets deeper and heavier. Liquid also wraps each pipe with no trapped air, and that is why it is normally poured over heating.
Of Towcester's homes, 33% date from 1973 to 1999. Houses like these, from the town's later growth, often get extended, and a heated kitchen on the back of one has to finish flush with the floor already there. That means working back from the finished floor level: flooring thickness, screed depth, pipe cover and insulation all have to fit the space available. Where the numbers do not add up, the insulation or the screed type is changed before the slab is poured, not after.
Before the pour we check what sits under it, the insulation, the membrane and the strip at the wall edges, and supply anything missing. For drying times after the pour, see how long screed takes to dry. The pumped option is explained on our Towcester liquid screed page.
Commissioning heating at Towcester Grange
New homes at Towcester Grange, off Stourhead Drive, are built with screeds over insulation, often with underfloor heating. On the Grange or anywhere else, the first warm-up is a slow one.
On calcium sulphate, the heating can be commissioned roughly a week in, from about 7 days. Sand and cement waits 21 days at least. The engineer starts the flow temperature low and nudges it up over several days, never jumping to full heat. Taken slowly, the screed dries evenly and stays crack free.
In an older Towcester building, heating is harder to add because doors, stairs and thresholds fix the floor height. Usually the old floor is dug out to make space for the insulation and pipes. A liquid screed, with its thinner cover, often makes it fit. In older buildings, thresholds are not always level with each other, so we survey the floor before agreeing a depth.
Write down the date and temperature of each heat-up step. The flooring fitter will usually ask for it before laying on a heated floor.
If your project is north of the town, see our page on underfloor heating screed in Northampton.
Underfloor Heating Screed prices in Towcester
Liquid screed over underfloor heating: £20 to £35 per m² supplied and laid (trade2base, June 2026), so £700 to £1,230 for 35 m². trade2base gives these figures excluding VAT. See our floor screeding cost guide or screed calculator.
Who lays your underfloor heating screed in Towcester
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.
Underfloor Heating Screed from Slough to Towcester
On the map, Towcester sits north-north-west of Slough, about 44 miles from our base in a straight line (postcodes including NN12), next to Northampton (8.3 miles), Buckingham (9 miles), Brackley (9.5 miles) and Daventry (11.4 miles).
More on underfloor heating screed, part of our screeding services.
