A Self Leveling Floor Compound Could Be the Answer You’re Looking For

Anywhere one enters a building we often see floors that are not quite as flat as the builder may have wanted them. Or, the various hills and valleys of a floor may simply be due to the building having settled ever so slightly, or it may indicate bigger problems. Utilizing a self leveling floor compound is best for leveling bumpy concrete floors or even wood floors that may be no longer level due to the floor joists having flexed or twisted in time. These modern self-leveling compounds are superlative for smoothing out the various dips encountered in either a concrete floor or even a wood subfloor.

Of course any application of a self-leveling floor compound requires that the subfloor is first of all stable and finally spotless. No floor compound will add stability to the floor, thus if need be floor joists may need to be either replaced or strengthened first.

It also stands to reason that the entire subflooring must be spotless. Dust accumulation especially will prevent any floor compound from adhering to the subfloor, so proper preparation by the flooring contractor is essential.

It is always interesting to watch such self leveling floor compounds being laid, however most of the time the first layer is nothing more than a primer. The primer then must be allowed to dry first before the self-leveling floor compound is introduced. The primer simply allows optimal bonding for the floor compound, very similar to a paint primer. However, this is one more step in the process, and time is money.

Things get a bit more interesting now, as the installer seeks and finds all of the lower levels of your flooring. There are numerous ways of doing this, but all of them are interesting to see. The installer will fill in those “holes” first since all of these compounds set up extremely quickly. If ever you’ve wanted to see a worker work fast, this will definitely be it. The self-leveling floor compound usually only has a “work life” of about 10 minutes, and thereafter it truly cannot be worked as it has begun to harden.

Or you might call Silikal to begin with. Because the Silikal floor product is put on while it is a liquid, in essence the product is its own self-leveling floor compound. In addition, you will not need to spend all that time allowing for a primer to be laid and worse yet to have to dry. Keep in mind that once Silikal is laid, the entire area is then ready to be walked upon or even driven upon for it cures in less than one hour – it’s that strong!