One of the most labor costs during the decoration of the apartment is the repair of the floor. Approximately submitting the scope of work, it is possible not only to abandon this repair with your own hands, but also to exclude it from plans. However, over time, the flooring deteriorates more stronger, and sooner or later, the postponement of its update becomes impossible.
If there was a need to make a new coating in the apartment, there is no need to look for professionals - it will not only increase the cost of repairs, but also will delete the result. It is quite possible to ensure the quality of the floor covering and when it laying it with your own hands, step by step bypaying all the necessary operations. Repair steps differ depending on the type of floor base, its initial state, the type of room, the type of decorative coating.
Evaluation of the front of work
The scale of the required repair is estimated based on the state of the existing coating. First of all, you need to identify problems at the bottom. Typically, the base is concrete, and the rest of the parts may vary: the upper structural elements can be kept on wooden lags or be laid on a cement tie.
Depending on the type of base, typical problems differ. So, on wooden floors, the boards begin to creak, loosen and falling, cracks are formed, the smell of rotes appear.
The screed can rustle from behind the breakaway pieces of concrete, to remember, separate construction sites may become unstable. Whatever the problem, the entire old coating is completely dismantled.
Removing the old coating
Of course, you must first take out all the furniture from the room and protect the rest of the rooms from dust and the construction garbage, if the repair is not carried out in the entire apartment.
Removing the coating is performed in the following order:
- Deleting plinths. It needs to be done carefully not to damage the walls. Yes, and the plinth themselves deform is undesirable if you can use them again. The easiest way to remove these elements, if they are fixed with self-draws or brackets.
- Removal of coating do it yourself. If the rolled material was used - for example, linoleum or carpet - it is cut, divided into narrow strips, and roll into rolls. If the material was glued to the floor, the dismantling process can take a noticeable amount of forces. Often, in this case, the coating is moving together with pieces of an old screed. If this happens, it is better to remove the coating with separate fragments. Parquet is removed by separate boards. The tile is removed using a perforator with a nozzle in the shape of a chisel.
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Of course, if the coating consists of individual elements, you can not replace it completely, but to repair only damaged areas. However, this option is not recommended, since in this case the old floor will continue to collapse, because of which the repair can be delayed forever with small intervals.
Repair base
If lags are installed on the floor and it is planned to install a new coating on them, you need to carefully examine these structural elements and their backups. There should be no sections of rotting, fungus and bacteria damage.
Each carrying item is checked for stability to loads - nothing should be fed, staggering and creaked. After checking, all lags are treated with antifungal and antibacterial agents to protect them from biological impact.
If the state of the lag is satisfactory, you can make a new coating on them, removing all the garbage from the gaps between them. In these cavities, you can lay fresh thermal insulation material, such as mineral wool. To form a new coating, you can use old boards with your own hands, swing the most suitable of them. Such a bust of the flooring will eliminate most of its flaws.
If the lags themselves are spoiled, they will have to be completely replaced, since the repair in this case does not guarantee a good result. You need to remove these elements carefully not to damage the concrete base.
If the old coating showed a screed, cement can be quite suitable for further use. It is only necessary to check whether the material is peeled, there are no loose areas in which the concrete is not durable enough or destroyed under the action of moisture. If such places are detected, they need to be cleaned and fill the fresh cement mixture.
In addition, cracks and cracks are necessarily close. The proper repair of these flaws implies their expansion by 10 mm. After stripping damaged sections, the floor surface is thoroughly cleaned and is dustded by a construction vacuum cleaner.
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The opening layer of the floor - its base, the concrete slabs of the overlap - are also carefully evaluated and, if necessary, are repaired with their own hands as well as the cement screed. Be sure to carefully smear the joints of the plates and close all the cracks.
Installation of leveling screed
If the old screed has been significantly damaged, and it had to completely dismantle, the surface probably became not horizontal. Orthodox occurs both due to the shrinkage of the building and due to violations in the construction process.
Therefore, before the start of laying a new decorative flooring, the floor must be aligned. You need to make a thickness of at least 3 cm thick, counting from the highest point of the base.
Installing the screed in the apartment is as follows:
The base is investigated using a level to determine the highest point of the floor. From this point will die the line of the top surface of the screed.
On the intended line, lighthouses are installed, which will be directed to the fill of concrete. Professionals can pour the solution, evaluating its even eye. But, if you repair your own hands, it is still preferably to install the lighthouse profiles.
The screed solution is divorced directly at the object of three parts of washed sand and one part of the M400 brand cement. Such a recipe will provide sufficient material strength, and the screed will allow you to put in the future any finish coating.
However, it is possible to make a solution from ready-made dry mixes for a screed, which is enough just to dilute with water according to the instructions from the manufacturer. It also indicates the optimal consumption of the solution on the m2 of the surface.
The cement mixture is bottled between the beacons and recalls the rule. After the primary solidification, the screed need to check the level and correct irregularities.
After hardening the resulting screed, which takes from a month to 45 days, depending on the conditions in the apartment, you can start the installation of the finish coating with your own hands.
Laying of decorative material
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Wood
It is deservedly considered the most environmentally friendly and safe material. The floorboards on the lags are mounted, in the cavities between which the insulation or soundproofing material is stacked. If not a solid board is used for decoration, but a wooden parquet, it can be stalled either on the screed, or to the Phaneur fixed on the lags.
The lags on the installation procedure resemble lighthouses to lay a screed. They are also installed strictly parallel to each other and on the same level, firmly fixed on the basis. You can make lags with your own hands from a solid wooden bar. The upper edges of the lag should be output to one plane, for which you can use or cement pellets, or bars or pieces of plywood.
Lagi covers plywood, which plays the role of an aligning screed here. Plywood sheets need to be put in a checker, shifting joints. On top of this layer, you can already put any finishing material, for example, natural parquet or laminate.
Linoleum
This material is highly resistant to almost all types of influences. In addition, modern linoleum is distinguished by environmental friendliness and wealth of design options. There is even a natural linoleum made of natural materials on a tissue substrate. It is more expensive than synthetic and more complicated in laying, but more pleasant to the touch and much cleaner in terms of ecology.
Different with linoleum and versatility - it can be laid in almost any room in the apartment, with the exception of the bathroom. The coating under the laminate should be perfectly smooth.
Ceramics
This material is most versatile and can fit with their own hands absolutely in any room. It is durable, wearless, is not affected by water, chemistry and biological pollution. Repair of such a coating is very easy to do - it is enough to replace damaged tiles.
Best of all ceramic tiles are suitable for rooms with high humidity or permeability - in the apartment is a bathroom, a kitchen, an entrance hall. In residential rooms, the tile is put less frequently because of its coldness and excessive hardness, although the first drawback is easily leveled by the installation of a warm floor. The design of the tile is varied - from our own colors to imitation of expensive wood and natural stone.