[spaceman spif]

My next project is the bathroom attached to the bedroom I just remodeled in my basement. This weekend my boys and I cleared it out and removed the baseboard only for me to find the floor is very uneven.

I plan on pouring some self-leveling concrete to smooth out what I can but most of the tips I read suggest running a screed across the top. The problem is this bathroom is very narrow and long, and any kind of screeding will be difficult since the sink sticks out, the tub sticks out, the toilet sticks out, and there is a small closet area sticking out.

Any suggestions?

 

[Canarywood1]

Post some pic's of what you have.

 

[WhatRnsdownhill]

when you say uneven..is one end of the bathroom higher than the other? or the surface is just rough?

 

[spaceman spif]

I'll get some pics up soon.

When I say uneven, I mean one end is higher than the other. At first glance it looks like when they installed the garden tub, they dug into the floor and installed the tub without leveling out the floor.

 

[WhatRnsdownhill]

you can do a mud job to level the floor..just need a level to work with , depending on how much you want to go in height..

 

[JazMan]

Still waiting for the answer to the above Q in # 3. SLC may not be the right product to use.

You can not use a screed with SLC.

Jaz

 

[spaceman spif]

Here's the view of the bathroom from the doorway. Since it's narrow it was hard to get a good pic. On the bottom right you can see the edge of the toilet. Then you can see two walls with wire drawers between them (yes, they are support walls for a set of stairs). Just on the other side, out of view, is the sink. And you can see the garden tub.

 

[spaceman spif]

Here's a closer shot of the bottom of the tub, showing how uneven it is. On the far left and right you can tell the floor meets the bottom of the tiles, but as you go towards the middle the floor slopes downward. At it's worst, the floor is almost a full inch below the bottom edge of the tile.

Aaaand for those of you curious, that purple thing is the broken handle from one of my daughter's hair brushes. Just clearing that up right away!!

 

[spaceman spif]

Now that I've had a chance to look at these pics up close, I'm thinking I'll have to caulk along that gap under the tub before I do any pouring. Also I just now noticed they used OSB behind the tub. Is that okay??

 

[WhatRnsdownhill]

forget the self leveling concrete, for now, what kind of finish floor do you want to put in? that will dictate in some sense how to level the floor..osb is not a good choice for tile backer, cement board is...

 

[spaceman spif]

I'm going to put in linoleum.

 

[JazMan]

If the tiles are bonded direct to the OSB, you're right, that's really a bad thing.

I keep reading the word "level", that's the wrong term to use. You need "flat", a level and flat floor would be best. If you must decide between the two, choose flat over level.

Is the areas near the tub the only problem spot, or is the whole room not flat?

Jaz

 

[spaceman spif]

The area around the tub was the most notable in terms of the sloping. I'm going to peel up the existing adhesive tiles and then I'll look over the rest of the floor and see if there are any other areas as bad. Hopefully it's just around that tub.

 

[WhatRnsdownhill]

unless you are going to do tiles and raise the floor, your limited on how level the floor will be, flat you can always put down 1/4 material to give a flat surface for the new linoleum..a slight unlevel area in an old house is character..LOL

 

[JazMan]

Downhill,

Apparently you missed the part that this is a basement. But even if it was upstairs, how is ¼" material going to make that floor flat?

Jaz

 

[WhatRnsdownhill]

Downhill,

Apparently you missed the part that this is a basement. But even if it was upstairs, how is ¼" material going to make that floor flat?

Jaz

OP did state basement, but the floor could have been built up with wood..so if a concrete floor,then just scrape off the tiles, and then thinset some tiles instead of linoleum , that will give you about 5/8 of height and eliminate any need to have to flatten out the cement ...

 

[JazMan]

OMG, I'm finding some of the advice I am seeing here lately beyond ridiculous.

In addition, now we're gonna give wrong advice cuz someone may have broken all the rules and built up a below grade concrete floor with a wooden sleepers.

Perhaps a graduate from the big-box school for hack

Please be careful because real people are reading our recommendations and I'd like to keep it that way.

Jaz

 

[spaceman spif]

Let me add a little more info - this is an older house so the ceiling is already low, and made even lower thanks to a drop ceiling fro access to the water and electric running overhead. So anything I do to the floor I want to make sure any added height is kept to a minimum.

 

[JazMan]

Spaceman,

If the room is higher on one end and you select self leveling cement, in theory it'll end up being much thicker on the end that is now low. This is usually the wrong way to go cuz it'll create a step on the low side if there's a door on that wall. As mentioned earlier, level is not important if you can live with a slight constant slope. I think in this case a regular patching cement might be the best solution. We don't have enough info yet to know for sure. We'd have to know how flat the floor is now as a whole.

So you can start by letting us know how much higher the one end is than the other, and the center relative to the rest. You need a long straight edge and the able to analyze what you see. We're not talking raising the floor a few inches here, that would be too much.

Jaz

 

[spaceman spif]

This weekend I scraped up the rest of the floor tiles and it took waayyyy longer than it should have. Apparently whoever laid down the floor used entirely too much adhesive and even though the floor has been down for over 8 years, it was still sticky and tacky and an absolute mess to deal with. And it looks like they put in some leveling concrete here and there. And it looks like Stevie Wonder did the job for them.

Any suggestions on how to clean up all the adhesive residue? It literally feels like walking on flypaper in there.