Levelling a timber floor for fitting Quickstep LVT click flooring

I live in an older property where some of the original timber floorboards are sloping up to 40mm from level. The boards are around 22mm thick and are in reasonable condition.

I'm planning to get rigid LVT click flooring fitted and am looking for advice on how to level the floor. I've been advised that taking up the boards and either packing the joists or bolting on new joists to bring up the level would probably be the best solution, but I can't afford the cost of this.

I was thinking that an option could be to put down plywood and then use a leveling compound such as Mapei Ultraplan Renovations Screed 3240 to level the floor out.

I would appreciate any advice on if this would be a possible solution, and how thick the plywood would need to be.

Thanks,

Tom

 

Was the floor originally like that or has it dropped?

 

I believe it's mainly due to settlement of the building, as its been like that since we moved in around 15 years ago and it hasn't got any worse over this time.

It's the kitchen that's affected, and we are looking at getting this done as part of a new kitchen installation.

 

It may be possible to just jack the joists back up, just by removing the boards closest to the wall for access, Jack the joists up and pack under the ends with slate or plastic packers. Are there gaps under the skirting?

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm looking for a way that can be done by the kitchen fitters during the kitchen installation.

I know they can lay plywood flooring and self leveling compound, so I thought that might be a solution to the issue. I've had various fitters tell me that it won't work and would crack, while others said it would be OK to put the leveling compound straight on to the old floorboards without any plywood.

I was looking for some guidance on this method to confirm it would be OK to do this and the correct thickness of plywood to use.

 

The ones who told you you could put levelling compound straight in the floorboards were not pro fitters thats for sure lol

 

*on the floorboards

 

Yes, as soon as they said that, they lost the chance of getting the job.

 

I take it that putting plywood down and using self levelling compound would be an acceptable way of dealing with the slope. How thick should the plywood normally be?

 

Yeah that’s fine. Take out the low spots with ply and then smooth it over with flexible levelling compound


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You can put screed straight to floorboards. Done it a few time’s. Uzin PE630 primer and Uzin NC175
Also back in the old days we would use fball green bag Over floorboards before putting ply over the top. That was to sort out cupping of boards.

 

I think I would still like to put down a plywood base first to give me more options on which product to use.

Can anyone advise me on how thick the plywood should normally be?

Thanks.

 

Best to ply 1st but can be done.
You want 9mm or 6mm ply ,SP101 or FG1