Self-Leveling compound? I have questions for a basement floor

I have a portion of my basement that is my brewery. The room is ~11x22 feet or 252 sq. ft.

The floor is rough concrete with a couple repaired spots and is generally uneven. I want to level the floor and I want to do it myself. Is this possible? I looked up quikcrete's self leveling compound and it looks like that would work, but I was hoping there were some contractors or other craftsman who could give me some direction.

It works. It's basically just a lightweight concrete mixed thin.

Are you intending to level the enitire floor or just the rough spots?

If the former, you'll prolly be looking at a 1" topping slab. First, you'll have to locate the highspot (water helps with this as it'll pool in the low spots) and use that as your starting point. It'll also help with the bonding to either use a bushing hammer or a concrete grinder to rough up the existing surface. You might even look for a bonding agent but, I've not had much luck with those. Expect a crapload of dust IN EVERYTHING!

That said, it'll be a LOT easier to bush down the bad spots and level those back in.

I was planning on just the whole floor. I though 1" sounded right too. Is it pretty easy to do?

The prep work is a PITA. Finding the highpoint, roughing the surface, cleaning the dust, blocking at door openings, marking the level line at the perimter, undercutting doors, etc...

But, the actual pour is easy peasy (of course, I have poured a LOT of concrete).

Also, you might want to consider a jamb saw too. and undercut the door jambs to allow the concrete to flow under the jambs. Otherwise, it will likely separate leaving a unsightly gap at the jambs.

Will you be flooring over the topping slab? If yes, you might even consider just flating the slab on a sheet of visqueen vapor barrier. For heavy use areas you might even consider diamond lathe (typically used for plaster backing) reinforcement to mitigate crackage.

Once poured, it's all wait as it tends to dry slowly.

I used to build hotels. My largest was a 3 story wood framed, all suite, 96 room. Every wood hotel I have built (20 in my record) has received a 1" to 2" lightweight topping slab for which I personally had to prepare the building to receive.

OK. So, the cleaning and roughing the surface I get. Building my dams and undercutting the jams I understand. What I am not sure about is how the stuff actually works.

You say I need to mark a level line. Is that just so I can get the pour close, to that line before letting it "self-level"? Or do I need to trowel this stuff flat and it only "self-levels a little bit?

I am not completely sure what I am doing on top of the slab. Either tile or staining.

What is flating? Do you mean, lay down a vapor barrier, then pour the SLC on top of the barrier?

For the diamond lathe, I would just lay it down then pour over the top?

I have done some concrete work, but am basically ranked as a hard core home DIYer. I have poured two concrete drives and done some masonry repair work, but I don't know the terms and need to have the steps pretty well defined.

Do you know approx. cost per 50 pound bag? I will need around 32-40 bags.

Home depot sells a RS which stands for "rapid set" I think. It was the cheapest of the self levelers I've found. I think it was $22 for a 50lb bag. They recommend a bonding primer be painted on to the surface of whatever it's going on. It can be feathered out to a thin edge so it doesn't have to be 1" thick unless you really have low spots that bad. I don't know that I'd attempt 252 sqft without having a few helpers. It sets up really fast and you need to have a given section fully poured out in about 5 minutes. In other words, you don't mix, pour, mix pour. Someone has to be mixing constantly and just handing you buckets. While it self levels to a certain degree, it needs help being spread out in the first 2 minutes.

I wouldn't use this stuff if you don't intend on putting some finished flooring over it.

40 bags!??? wow.

Yeah, I generally try to avoid quick drying stuff as I have found regular drying products to provide a better end result. Hopefully that will buy me a little more time.

I will definitely have a crew of helpers. Likely about 4-5 guys.

So I can likely count on about $25 per bag? That comes to about $800.00 for 32 bags, which I can probably swing at a thinner thickness.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

OK. So, the cleaning and roughing the surface I get. Building my dams and undercutting the jams I understand. What I am not sure about is how the stuff actually works.

You say I need to mark a level line. Is that just so I can get the pour close, to that line before letting it "self-level"? Or do I need to trowel this stuff flat and it only "self-levels a little bit?

I am not completely sure what I am doing on top of the slab. Either tile or staining.

What is flating? Do you mean, lay down a vapor barrier, then pour the SLC on top of the barrier?

For the diamond lathe, I would just lay it down then pour over the top?

I have done some concrete work, but am basically ranked as a hard core home DIYer. I have poured two concrete drives and done some masonry repair work, but I don't know the terms and need to have the steps pretty well defined.

Click to expand...

It works by being very liquid and the liquid will seek out it's own level. Problem is, it's suceptible to spalling and cracking because it's not re-inforced with an aggregate. IIRC, there are some variants that have a fiber mesh but that is nasty stuff and you will definitely need to cover it. the level line is just to get the pour depth.

As to staining, just know that the mix is suceptible to pinholes too. Cauysed by air pockets worki9ng themselves out during the curing.

Yes. Typo. Meant to write floating.

Yes. Just lay the lathe down and pour over it. It you can pin it down it'd be best. That stuff can move in a heartbbeat and is sharp as a razor.

I wouldn't use a quick set unless it was for a small area. The slower dry time will reduce cracking, and spalling during shrinkage. The longer set time will allow a more monolithic pour and more time for self leveling.

There are also machine rentable from construction supply houses that allow one person to dump the mix and add the water, while the other pours the mix from a hose. If you dont go woth that you'll definitely want a barrel mixer.

I however, have no experience with exposed finishing of topping slabs and I am not sure it's be worth the effort.

For exposed concrete, I'd recommend patching and spot leveling and then a non slip coating.

If you wanted to leave it concrete, I'd recommend topping it with a two-part epoxy garage floor paint for durability and cleanup.

My pipe-dream is to have something like this:



With my brewery logo stenciled in.



That would likely be pricey, but a man's got to have dreams!

Topping slab, epoxy coating, vinyl overlay, lots of wax or poly. Done!

Cheap too.

OK.

So the slab is going to cost ~$550 for a 1/2" average thickness slab
Stain at about $20/gallon ~$200
Epoxy base layer ~$100
vinyl image of my brewery logo positioned on top of the base layer ~$30
Epoxy top coat with abrasive $150

???

~=$1,030

Does that sound right?

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

OK.

So the slab is going to cost ~$550 for a 1/2" average thickness slab
Stain at about $20/gallon ~$200
Epoxy base layer ~$100
vinyl image of my brewery logo positioned on top of the base layer ~$30
Epoxy top coat with abrasive $150

???

~=$1,030

Does that sound right?

Click to expand...

stain and epoxy?

the epoxy is usually pigmented heavily (think garage floor coating). I'd personally want the epoxy as it'll help keep the surface intact better.

But yeah, everything else looks about right. Now figure another 60% for surprises and you are set.

Epoxy will only give me a flat color, unless I am mistaken. I really like the look of the stained concrete with the natural chaos of the patterns.

Would it work to do it like above?
Stain the floor. Then epoxy over the stained concrete with clear epoxy? Seems to me I would get the best of both worlds.

I was thinking of this product: http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...log.beans.EndecaDataBean@c30ed17&ddkey=Search

Ahhh. Clear epoxy. I wasn't thinking of that.

Just not sure the finish quality of a self level floor is worth staining. But then, I have never tried to trowel a finsh onto one.

So like Bobby_M said above, it looks bad unless you trowel it? In that case epoxy would be fine. And much easier.

You mentioned poly. Would yousuggest putting down an epoxy layer (colored), then the vinyl logo, then topping with several thin coats of poly like a regular floor?

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

So like Bobby_M said above, it looks bad unless you trowel it? In that case epoxy would be fine. And much easier.

You mentioned poly. Would yousuggest putting down an epoxy layer (colored), then the vinyl logo, then topping with several thin coats of poly like a regular floor?

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No topping slab I have ever "seen", and I have seen a LOT, has had a finish worth accentuating. And I am not certain it would even trowel well.

So , yeah. I'd do the latter but, if you can get the clear epoxy I might consider that instead and mix some clear beads for some slip resistance.

Epoxy or poly, either way, when wet it's gonna be slippery as hell. Even with some grit.

So maybe a rubber pad for in front of the brewery might be a good idea?

Sounds good, plus taking out the stain saves some scratch.

This sounds pretty doable.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

So maybe a rubber pad for in front of the brewery might be a good idea?

Sounds good, plus taking out the stain saves some scratch.

This sounds pretty doable.

Click to expand...

Definitely! I'd love to go restaurant style around mine but dang. Pricey.

And that is the garage.

I did the grey epoxy on my garage slab and instead of mixing the pumice into the can, I sprinkled it on top of the wet epoxy after I rolled it on. It was shiny as hell but it wasn't too slippery when wet. It needs to be recoated every 6 years apparently because it has lost its luster since then.

Easy to use, even for a one-shot user. One corner of my house in Sunnyvale cracked and slumped a bit (1957 they didn't use rebar much). I tore the carpet up, removed the nail strips and cleaned the concrete. Poured the compound and it leveled nicely. Worst part was keeping the dogs off of it until it set. They always want to check out something new.