Silly screed question

[Roger440]

Whilst sorting things out post flood, An area of screed was in rather poor condition, probably to weak.

 

Handy as the insurance company chaps were convinced it was screed, over insulation over concrete. So they were saying floor out to replace insulation.

 

Happily, its screed over concrete, and presumably under that, insulation. (built 2007)

 

But that got me thinking. Why would you put 90mm of screed over a concrete slab?

 

 

[Temp]

Floor levels wrong?

Slab not level?

 

[Gus Potter]

This requires a bit of lateral thinking. If you are a builder and you get the structural slab too high then you are in trouble. All other things being equal then it's a bit of risk management.  Or they may have cast the structural slab too thin hence the 90mm... to fudge it up..

[Ronan 1]

It wasnt an uncommon practice, alot of builder didn't want finished floors going in at the start of the process so allowed for a finished screed to go in after the plastering was done, fairly common for plasterers to lay the screed as their parting shot (in Ireland anyway).

 

When I started 20+ years ago doing groundworks the majority of houses I done was done this way or 50% at least.

[Roger440]

Interesting. Just struck me as a waste of money.

 

If you did it right first time, less digging out, and no screed required. But im just using logic?

[Roger440]

25 minutes ago, Gus Potter said:

This requires a bit of lateral thinking. If you are a builder and you get the structural slab too high then you are in trouble. All other things being equal then it's a bit of risk management.  Or they may have cast the structural slab too thin hence the 90mm... to fudge it up..

 

Slabs not structural. Its just filling the gap between the walls.

[Ronan 1]

23 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Interesting. Just struck me as a waste of money.

 

If you did it right first time, less digging out, and no screed required. But im just using logic?

Never seen the point of it myself to be honest but alot of people was adamant that they didn't want their new floors "destroyed" by all the trades that would go after, blocklayers etc.. I was always delighted though as it meant I didn't have to stay up all through a winters night powerfloating a dozen floor slabs we could just horse them in and say "ah sure there's a screed covering it , it'll be grand" ?