Latex bases for Woodley kitchen and bathroom refits
Ask a flooring fitter for latex and you are asking for a particular product. It comes in two parts, a bag of cement based powder and a container of latex liquid, mixed together in place of water. The cured layer has a little give and grips well, and it is laid only a few millimetres deep. That is why it suits the bases left behind in older homes, where an ordinary thin compound might crack or let go.
Replacing worn original floors is part of modernising a semi, and the floor under a dated kitchen can be a patchwork. There may be quarry or ceramic tiles from an earlier refit, a strip of new concrete where a wall came out, or old adhesive left when vinyl was lifted. Firmly bonded tiles can be degreased, primed and covered. Well stuck old adhesive can sometimes be covered too, once we have checked it is compatible. Anything loose comes up first.
Upstairs, bathrooms in houses usually sit on timber. Latex is never laid directly over floorboards, because the boards move. They are covered with flooring grade plywood, screwed down firmly, and the ply is primed before the latex is poured and smoothed.
Homes built on the old aerodrome site in the 1980s are now old enough for the same kind of refit, so the same questions about tiles, boards and glue come up there. Where a whole floor has failed rather than simply being rough, see replacing a floor with sand and cement in Woodley.
Checking a Woodley floor before latex goes down
Latex only works on a sound base, so much of the time on a job goes into checking and preparing it. Three problems rule it out until they are put right.
Movement is the first. A timber floor that bounces underfoot will crack any thin coat laid over it, ply or no ply, so loose boards and weak joists are dealt with beforehand. Damp is the second: latex does not stop moisture coming through an old solid floor, and vinyl laid over a damp slab can lift. Height is the third. Where a floor falls badly from one side of the room to the other, a coat a few millimetres thick simply follows the slope, so the floor needs repairing or rescreeding first; our Woodley floor levelling page explains how deeper compound and screed compare.
Once the base passes, it is primed to suit what it is: plywood, tiles, concrete, cement screed or calcium sulphate. A calcium sulphate screed also has its laitance sanded off before priming. Then the latex is mixed, poured and spread in a single thin coat.
Flats make up 12% of Woodley's homes, and in a flat the finished height at the front door and the bathroom threshold leaves little room to spare, so a few millimetres of latex is easier to accommodate than a thicker build-up. For full depths, see our guide to screed thickness. Reading has its own page on latex screed in Reading.
How we price latex screed in Woodley
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 Woodley
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 Woodley
Woodley is about 12.5 miles west-south-west of our Slough base as the crow flies, with postcodes including RG5 and RG41. The nearest towns to it are Reading (2.9 miles), Wokingham (4.4 miles), Henley-on-Thames (5.8 miles) and Bracknell (7.1 miles).
More on latex screed, part of our screeding services.
