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Carpets, Lino & Flooring

Crumbling concrete floor - can I lay underlay and laminate floor?

Anonymous user 23/02/2024 - 2.45 PM

I just ripped half of the old carpet in my lounge and found the concrete floor is crumbling, only where the floor meet the walls (two walls are external walls, one is a supporting wall between the kitchen and the lounge). When I took the spiky wooden strips (sorry don't know the name, they hold the carpet in place) which was directly nailed on to the concrete floor, the crumbling got worse. Most of the floor is covered with vinyl (?) tile which is still in good condition but some tiles got loose around the crumbling area. I would like to know if this is normal and DIY repair will be enough or could be more serious and should be looked at by professionals. My questions are: 1: Is it ok to ignore this and put the laminate floor (and underlay) 2: Should I be repairing the crumble before laying the underlay for the laminate floor 3: Can I lay the laminate and underlay onto the existing tile or should I remove them all? Any advice will be appreciated and thank you in advance. Mel

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3 Answers

J.J.M. Flooring Specialist

Rating: 5 out of 5

Reading

Hi Mel, In my experience the finish is as good as the prep work. Some would advise that your floor situation would be ok under laminate flooring, my advise would be to remove all the tiles back to bare concrete, latex (screed) in english , the floor and have peace of mind on completion that .a, its not crumbling as you walk on the laminate, and b the floor is solid and level to except the laminate. Hope you find this of help. Regards James

Answered14 May 2013

Anonymous user

Hi, I would advise removing the old vinyl tiles from the floor which should be easily removed if these are the old type, you will identify this by the tiles being hard and brittle.. applying a latex (floor self levelling compound) to the floor which can be purchased from Wickes that you mix with water, and trowelling out with a plasterer's type trowel to achieve a decent finish. This will then level and smooth itself as it is drying. This will achieve a better surface to lay new flooring onto and prevent any crumbling cracking noises in future from the old broken concrete under the flooring.

Answered30 May 2013

BPD Services

Rating: 5 out of 5

Haverhill

My advice is to get your floor back to its bare bones where you or a builder can see the size of the problem and rectify it, anything less may well give you problems in the near future. If there is extensive cracking to whole floor then I would have it taken out and a new concrete floor (reinforced as needed) laid to level, I would also seek the advice of a laminate flooring specialist as to the type of underlay required.

Answered9 August 2015