January 2016 | E&M Services

With all flooring jobs the final finish will only ever be as good as the subfloor that it is installed on. As a result, it is important to invest time and effort into the preparation. As they say, ‘planning and preparation, prevents poor performance.’ Never a truer word has been said when it comes to vinyl flooring installations. Okay, so to start with you need to clear the area. The majority, if not all of the furniture and equipment needs to be safely relocated, particularly if smoothing compound is required (for concrete, screed subfloors). We use a combination of several of our team with trolleys and lifting equipment in order to help our clients to get an area ready for the flooring works. Once the area is clear, then it is time to take up the old flooring. Don’t forget that it is important to wear PPE during flooring preparation such as steel toe protectors and gloves.To take up carpets and carpet tiles, we use a combination of hand and power tools to scrape up the flooring. Sometimes, the carpet finish can split to leave a backing adhered to the subfloor. This needs to come up too. For this, we use large commercial floor scrapers and machines when necessary. For vinyl and linoleum flooring we cut them down into 12-inch strips and peel it up. If the project is likely to be dusty we use air extractors and dust cubes to keep it down. This stops dust travelling through the building and is required for health and safety reasons. Our hospital clients really appreciate us managing dust in areas. Depending on their needs we use extraction, dampening down techniques, such using water misters and polyethene dust walls. All of the dust control measures are determined by our risk assessment process. Once the floor is up we dispose of it to nearby skips using trolleys and then we are ready to improve the subfloor. We then have to choose the most appropriate type of levelling compound. There are literally dozens available all with different characteristics. We have 30 years of experience and so we know the right products to use to ensure the best possible subfloor is achieved. Experience is vital to flooring projects. Once the smoothing compound is mixed and ready we spread it across the floor. We have all sorts of kit to ensure the final product is of an exceptionally high standard.Once complete, we leave the newly prepared subfloor to dry. Some products only take a couple of hours but on the whole we leave it over night to harden off. Then, it is ready to provide a quality subfloor base for your new flooring, whether carpet, vinyl, Karndean or linoleum.

How to prepare a subfloor?