Hi, does anyone have any issues with screeds going off (drying times). We have had several jobs recently when we've gone to a job to screed say on a Monday morning, gone back to fit flooring on the Tuesday morning and the floor is still soaking. I know sometimes it's hard to ventilate areas etc, but it's happening too many times for me. i think our fitters are adding too much water to the latex. Does anybody else add a touch of water to their screeds?...........If this is the case now, God help me in the winter!
you should not be adding water to latex screeds as it will make drying time longer as you have found out and more so it weakens the compression strength and shear strength. I take it that your fitters are adding water so the screed will flow better? Have you tried using a better quality screed that flows well without adding water? Most good quality screeds flow like water and can be walked on after 2 or so hours. They may cost a bit more but you will save yourself labour costs as you wont need to sand them down etc What compound do you use at the moment?
At the moment Screed Master Ultimate 2 (Laybond) or The Bostik Low Odour. We mailly fit Amtico or karndean.
Maybe you should give Fballs water based products a go. Try Fball 300 , the subfloor MUST be primed with 131 primer. This stuff flows like water. However you cant use it over a damp subfloor. You can use Fball 200 acrylic over a damp subfloor but it does not flow as well (still alot better than screed master etc tho). You can use the 200 under a epoxy DPM and then use Fballs 300 over the top. Also Uzin do some really good compounds. Try Nc150 which is also water based. Again it must be primed with Pe260/360 uzin primer.
300 is water based. 200 is acrylic based so it almost the same as latex but stronger. There are only 1 or 2 latex compounds that are strong enough (compression strengh) to go under karndean or amtico. Is there a reason why you want to use latex based?
Going back years ago we always used to use the ammonia based screeds (nicobond). Then we moved on to F.Ball 128? Blue Bag, but we couldn't get a direct account with F.Ball. So we moved on to Laybond, we used to use Screedmaster 1 & 2 but everytime i told our fitters to use 1 they pulled a face and said they didn't like using it. Why i'm not sure because i know it flows really well. thinking of moving back to Blue Bag??
Agree with matt, i have used the the screedmaster once and hated it. give the Balls 300 HD a try the compression strength is up there for the likes of karndean etc but again make sure you prime first. Also the K11 ardex water based is a cheaper alternative. regarding adding water,thats a big no no! nothing worse than going on a job to find a white powdery mess all over the floor Hippyfitter
