Carpets, Lino & Flooring

How to sort mess of kitchen subfloor

Anonymous user 16/03/2024 - 2.40 PM

We've bought some decent quality vinyl flooring for our kitchen, and will be hiring a professional fitter to make sure it's installed properly. But I could do with some advice on the best approach for the job before I hire someone, as it's a bit complicated. The problem is that most of the room is tiled, but under the units and where there used to be units it's not - the floor is about 1cm lower in those areas. The obvious solution is to pull up the tiles but unfortunately under the ceramic tiles are asbestos tiles, so it's not safe to start pulling them up. To add to the fun, the untiled areas just have the asbestos tiles, with some broken and/or removed so it's just the mastic (which is also asbestos :') this is what we get for buying a house built in 1970). I'll sort encapsulation of the asbestos areas first (with an epoxy or similar), but I'm wondering what the best approach is to 1) raise those areas the 1cm to level with the ceramic tiles and 2) then prep the whole lot for the vinyl. Screed or self level to the lower areas, then self level the whole lot, then vinyl? What suggested approach/es would be a red flag not to hire someone? Thank you in advance for any wisdom!