Level a Concrete Floor Before Setting Tile, Wood or Carpet
It's difficult for contractors to set level concrete floors especially when they are under time and budget constraints. Unfortunately this flaw is passed on to you and comes into play when you decide to recover your concrete floor with tile, wood planks or carpet.
Thanks to Wired.com we've got a few options to help solve this problem.
Self-Levelers
Concrete floor self-levelers are generally a polymer modified, cement based material that, when poured over the uneven area, basically does just what its name suggest... "self-levels".
Most self-levelers have special plasticizers blended into them to increase their ability to flow smoothly, eliminate shrinkage and cracking, and to increase its ability to bond with the surface below.
The properties in self-levelers also promote strength in the surface area and, depending upon which brand you use, will provide anywhere from 1,500 to 4,000 pounds of compressive strength. The compressive strength increases as the self leveler cures.
Self-levelers can be used for depths from 1/16 inch to 4 inches without cracking or shrinking.
Feather Finishers
Feather finishers work in much the same way as self-levelers do. However, they are designed for very narrow depths from a skim coat to about 1mm, thus, creating a nice feather edge to blend with your current floor. They dry very quickly, allowing you to lay floor covering in as little as 15 minutes.
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