ᐅ Flooring Thickness – Specification for Screed Installers

askforafriend schrieb:

Now we are slowly but surely figuring it out. You didn’t install the floors yourself and you built with a general contractor. I need someone who does direct contracts and installs the floors themselves.

Actually, the only floor that was installed by the general contractor at handover was the one in the bathroom on the upper floor: about seven m² (75 sq ft). Everything else was done by the tradesman on the screed: floorboards on the upper floor, tiles continuously on the ground floor, rubber flooring continuously in the basement, and recently parquet on the attic floor.

For tiles, the adhesive layer is usually between 2 and 5 mm (0.08 and 0.2 inches); in extreme cases, you can level up to 8 mm (0.3 inches) directly during installation, depending on the needs. So it depends on the skills of the tiler—I’m not sure how good you are at that.

For parquet, typically around 2 mm (0.08 inches) of buildup height remains for the adhesive.

Do the math!

But again, this all assumes a good screed. If the floor installer throws their hands up because they suddenly need 6 mm (0.24 inches) of leveling compound for your extra-large tiles on uneven screed, but you only planned for 2 mm (0.08 inches) of adhesive plus 8 mm (0.3 inches) tile thickness to transition to 8 mm (0.3 inches) glued vinyl, it’s going to get tricky. In the worst case, you only find out once the screed is walkable—and then it’s too late!

That’s why you absolutely need to share your plan with the screed installer, who knows best about the screed quality. And by the way, one millimeter (0.04 inches) is not a proper gap allowance when laying the screed.

Alright. I think I will discuss this directly with the site manager / screed installer. I imagine it comes down to:

Parquet 14mm (0.55 inches) plus 2mm (0.08 inches) parquet adhesive = 16mm (0.63 inches)
Vinyl 6mm (0.24 inches)
Tiles 8mm (0.31 inches) plus 4mm (0.16 inches) mortar = 12mm (0.47 inches)
Tiles 9mm (0.35 inches) plus 4mm (0.16 inches) mortar = 13mm (0.51 inches)

What do you think?