Bought a house a couple of years ago and there's always been a raised lump in the kitchen floor, drives me mad. Had to lift some of the floor recently (tongue and groove laminate) and it turns out the hump is caused by the underfloor heating mat, installed before we got here. There's a tiled kitchen bit and then the rest of the room is the laminate. The mats are mostly under the tiled area but reach under the laminate by about a foot or so. The wires in the mats have a profile of around 6mm and then have concrete over the top, so there's a raised strip of flooring. The folk who installed the floor have made a slope in the concrete down to where it meets with the chipboard flooring sheets but it's still a very noticeable slope when the laminate is on top. I was wondering if I can make a large recess in the chipboard of 6mm depth and have the flooring lie in it, that way it wouldn't be raised. Is that something you can do? If so, what would be the best way to do it? i.e. chisel by hand or are there tools available? And if not, is there anything else I can do about it? To be honest, I don't even like the underfloor heating and never use it - it takes forever to heat up and is so expensive that I can't bear to have it on long enough for it to actually get warm! This is the first house I've owned and I know nothing about flooring, I'm afraid. Any advice greatly appreciated! Have attached some photos. You can see where the mats come out to and then the rest of the concrete slope.
The old laminate was destroyed when we ripped it up, so we'll make a border where the old floor is and put down new laminate (can't afford to re-do the whole room).
