Thin finishes for period and listed Winchester rooms
The name sounds like a material of its own, but latex screed is really a levelling compound with a twist. A cement based powder is mixed with a latex liquid in place of water. The latex makes the set layer slightly more flexible and improves its grip on tricky surfaces, which is why it goes where a plain compound might let go. It is laid thin, normally a few millimetres, to make a surface smooth rather than to build it up.
That thinness is useful in Winchester's older housing. Where a building is listed or sits in a protected street, the finished floor level is often settled at the outset, and a door, a stone threshold or old joinery may leave almost no room to raise it. A few millimetres of latex can give a new vinyl or LVT finish the smooth base it needs without changing the agreed level in any noticeable way.
Many older floors have timber boards. Latex is never spread straight onto bare boards, because they move and the coat would crack along the joints. The boards are fixed down, overboarded with flooring grade plywood and primed, and the latex goes over the plywood.
Older kitchens and sculleries may also still have quarry tiles, sometimes buried under later layers. Tiles that are firmly bonded can be cleaned, keyed and primed with a product for non-porous surfaces, then skimmed. Loose or hollow tiles come up first.
Whether the floor is in The Soke, on St Giles's Hill or out towards West Hill, the approach is the same: check what is there, then decide whether a thin coat is enough.
When latex will not fix a Winchester floor
Latex is a finish, not a repair, and plenty of floors need something else first.
Damp is the most common reason to stop. Old solid floors without a working damp proof membrane let moisture through, and a thin coat does nothing about it. Vinyl and rubber laid on top may blister or lose their bond. We take a reading, and if moisture is too high the choices are a surface membrane or digging out and relaying the floor with a membrane and insulation.
Springy timber is the next. If a floor flexes underfoot, no compound will hold together on it. The joists and boards are put right and the plywood laid before latex is considered.
Then there is a floor that is simply too far out. A thin coat cannot correct a room that dips by more than a few millimetres; asked to, it cracks or lifts. Our deeper levelling with compound or a fresh screed is the route there, and a floor that is crumbling in places may need targeted screed repairs before anything else.
Primers suit the base. Concrete, plywood and old tiles each get their own, and calcium sulphate screed is always sanded free of laitance and primed before latex goes on. With 19% of Winchester's homes built before 1919, plenty of floors here are old enough that these checks are worth making first.
How we price latex screed in Winchester
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 Winchester
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 Winchester
Winchester is about 43.5 miles south-west of our Slough base as the crow flies, with postcodes including SO23 and SO22. The nearest towns to it are Eastleigh (6.6 miles), Romsey (9.6 miles), Hedge End (10.2 miles) and Southampton (11.6 miles).
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.
