When constructing a new building, or carrying out a major renovation, one of the most important considerations is the floor. It may seem obvious, but everything and everybody is going to be standing or walking on that floor and it has to be both safe and sound, and level.

If you are working on a new build project of any description in Worcestershire, you will doubtless want some form of screed laid on to the base concrete floor. There is no law that says that you have to have a screed laid, but the fact is that they are extremely useful when it comes to levelling uneven floor structures before the final flooring, whatever it may be, is laid.

Laying a screed on to a floor is the simple process of adding an additional layer of sand and cement or a gypsum-based screed on to a concrete floor in order to provide a sturdy and hard-wearing sub-floor on which the final flooring will be laid. Alternatively, it may be what is known as a wearing screed and become the final floor surface itself.

Floor screeds have traditionally been made of sand and cement and have been used for years for the purpose of levelling out a concrete substrate so that the surface on which the final flooring is going to be laid is as level as it can be. This is particularly important when the flooring is going to be something like tiling which has to be affixed with adhesive: if the surface is not level, the tiling is going to get cracked when people walk upon it.

A floor screed is also used for the installation of underfloor heating. Heating pipes or electric heating cables or mats are laid, and the floor screed laid on top. This helps to produce an even level of warmth in the room above.

At this time of the year, not many people are thinking about heating their homes. If anything, they are thinking about how to cool them rather than heat them, especially after the recent hot weather in many parts of the country.

However, believe it or not, it won’t be all that many weeks before the weather cools again and people will be switching on the heating once more, even if only a little to begin with. Heating costs money, and many heating systems can be quite wasteful. Radiators, for example, send a lot of heat up to the ceiling and they don’t heat the room evenly, either. This means that there are colder spots, so the radiator gets turned up some more in order to warm them up.

Many people believe that underfloor heating systems are a relatively new development and are the height of luxury reserved for high-end properties, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Underfloor heating has been around at the very least since the Roman times, and some reports go back further than that. In those days, channels were cut into the floor of a home and were topped with stone which was then heated from fires in specific places.

When you walk into any sort of property, whether it’s someone’s home, a shop, a factory, a warehouse, a museum, or even your own home, the last thing that you are likely to look at is the floor. This is because it is just something that is “there” and that we take for granted will be there.

Certainly, if the floor has and outstanding appeal – such as pretty tiling or perhaps is laid with marble slabs – then we may notice it and even be captivated by its’ beauty in some circumstances, but in 99% of buildings we just don’t even consider it. It is just something that we walk on, or possibly glide across in a wheelchair, but we take it for granted in the same way that we do the roof and the walls. Yes, we might have our attention drawn to the walls, for instance, if there are lovely pictures hanging on them, but if you go into the average hotel room painted in the ever-present boring magnolia you are not going to be excited about the walls.

If you are working on a project in Northampton or any other town for that matter and looking for a suitable screed, you may well wonder which is the best screed for your particular circumstances. There are a lot of different choices, one of which is the traditional sand and cement screed which has been in use for years.

One of the most critical parts of any construction project is making certain that the substrate upon which the final flooring is going to be laid is as flat and level as it can possibly be. The usual answer is to lay a screed on top of the concrete in order to produce a level surface, and the ideal is the measurement SR1 – Surface Regularity 1. SR2 is fairly good, although not perfect.

For many years, the traditional screed has been made of sand and cement and has been laid with a trowel. This has many disadvantages, not the least of which is when underfloor heating is going to be installed as well. Laying a sand and cement screed is also a long-drawn-out job, being installed as it is by a man on hands and knees.

Floor compound is also known as self-levelling compound and is a type of liquid screed. It can get confusing because there are several different terminologies used to describe much the same thing.

A floor screed is used to produce a surface on top of the concrete substrate that is as level as it can possibly be, so that the final floor surface – be it tile, vinyl, carpet, wood, or whatever – can be laid completely flat and without, in the case of something like tile, the chance of it cracking. If you lay tile on an uneven surface and then people walk on it, it is highly likely that the tiles will crack, and that is the last thing that you need. This is why a screed, or floor compound, is used.