Many tiled floors appear smooth but slight deviations in levels mean that filling just the grout lines or simply applying a thin skim coat will still allow the tiles to show through your new stick-down vinyl flooring. In rooms with minimal natural light falling across the floor, such as some bedrooms and bathrooms, it is possible to get away with less preparation. However, many modern Queensland homes have large expanses of glass that let daylight fall across them in all directions; see these photos for a typical example. We call these “critical light” situations and this is not a place to cut corners if gluing down most vinyl floors.
The surest way to tackle these subfloors is to prime the cleaned tiles with a suitable roll-on primer and apply a 3 – 4mm flood coat with a quality, self-levelling cement compound. Avoid the budget “screeding” compounds from hardware. One of our professional installers would treat a whole house in half a day and return one or two days later, depending on humidity levels, temperature and flood coat thickness. This sort of work is definitely not recommended for anyone less than the most skilled DIYers and most domestic floor installers would struggle to get this sort of finish.
At Integra Direct Helensvale we have teams of skilled and experienced commercial installers ready to carry out this sort of flood-coat over your tiled floor or any uneven concrete floors. We even have flexible levelling compounds for preparing uneven timber or particle board floors!