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.

One of the most important parts of the home is the floor, so it is important to get it right. One of the most useful materials that you can use before installing the final flooring is a screed, and these come in a variety of different forms. Traditional sand and cement screed is laid by hand in a lengthy process, and it is difficult to get it as flat and level as one would like. It is also not as good as other screeds when it comes to covering underfloor heating. Because of the material and the way in which it is laid, there can be gaps around and under the heating pipes which means that the heat transfer is not 100% effective.

The anhydrite or calcium sulphate floor screeds that we install at UK Screeds have very many advantages over sand and cement screeds. They are much quicker to lay, as we pour them in by a pump, and this means that a far greater area can be laid in a day than the manual laying of sand and cement. It is estimated that a liquid screed is around 20 times faster to lay.

If you are undertaking a project and want to install underfloor heating, there are two types of heating system that we can use at UK Screeds. One is an electric system and the other is water-based. Both systems heat the floor of the room and the people and objects within it, as opposed to a radiator system which simply heats the air and actually leads to a lot of waste energy.

UK Screeds is the foremost provider of anhydrite screeds throughout England and Wales. Liquid anhydrite screed has so many advantages over traditional sand and cement screed, not the least of which is that it is so fast to lay. Our teams can lay up to 2,000 square feet in a day, and this is estimated to be up to 20 times faster than you could lay a sand and cement screed which has to be trowelled on by hand.

UK Screeds are the leading flooring screeding contractors in the UK, with no fewer than 11 branches, so we can lay your screed wherever you are.

Liquid screed has many benefits for contractors, not the least of which is that it is far faster to lay than traditional sand and cement screed. Our teams can lay as much as 100 square metres in 45 minutes, and up to 2,000 square metres a day. This is reckoned to be about 20 times as fast as laying a traditional sand and cement screed by hand using trowels.