On 26/06/2026 at 19:48, Nickfromwales said:

DIY pour by your good self?

As an update, I have at last semi-dry mix screeded the floor, and after watching countless videos I decided to do it like the professionals. So I built banks of screed along the walls and then levelled between them. Not as difficult as I thought it would be. Getting the mix right was much more difficult.

2 hours ago, Gone West said:

Getting the mix right was much more difficult.

Do tell please.

2 hours ago, Gone West said:

to do it like the professionals.

You mean it dips and dives and has ripples?

13 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Do tell please.

I used a mix of four bags of sharp sand, one bag cement, 100g V12 glass fibres and 4 litres of water in a conventional electric concrete mixer. I experimented with the amount of water to get what I thought was wet enough to just hold together. The problems were with the order the materials were added to the mixer and if over mixed then lumps formed in the mix which got bigger. The professionals used a drum paddle mixer, which probably would be better, as I had to frequently stop to dig out and loosen the mix from the bottom of the mixer. Doing a normal wet mix is straightforward and I had never used a semi-dry mix before. The floor is now flat and level, but not smooth. I'm not bothered as it will be tiled anyway and it is hard enough to walk on already. Just have to wait for it to cure. Against what the professionals say, if I did it again I would replace one of the bags of sharp sand, with soft sand, as I did an experiment with that mix, at the end, and it was a lot more workable and no lumps!