Semi-dry screed, advantages and technology

Man every year comes up with something new, trying to create a universal ways of building more robust and durable construction. One of the important conditions is high quality and efficiency of work. All this allows you to get a semi-dry screed with your own hands. The resulting surface is strong, resistant to all kinds of loads and perfectly flat.

Today there are several ways to create a perfectly flat and smooth floor:

• wet screed;
• is dry;
• bulk;
• is semi-dry.

Increasingly popular is the semi-dry coupler. What are its advantages over conventional concrete pouring? And how to make a semi-dry floor screed with your own hands? There are different ways to level the floor by the beacon.

Firstly, the thickness of the semi-dry screed can reach 5 cm, while it remains strong and durable.

If the screed turns out to be much thicker, it is recommended to fill the large cavities with a leveling solution. Or pour ordinary concrete with gravel.

Secondly, a semi-dry screed can easily be leveled before the time of full hardening. When preparing the mixture used well sifted sand and ordinary cement of high marks.

Thirdly, the floor made with a semi-dry screed has better heat and sound insulation. This is achieved by adding fiber.

Fourthly, when flooding a semi-dry screed due to the presence of a small amount of water in it, it does not flow out of the edge of the waterproofing and does not fall into the slabs. Thus, it does not cause trouble to neighbors below the floor.

Fifth, the semi-dry screed due to the presence of polymer fibers in it has greater resistance to cracking and shrinkage.

Features of a semi-dry screed

With the advent of new building materials, new technologies are born, allowing to obtain the same products, but with better characteristics. A liquid cement-sand screed and still remains the most common, this is probably the origin of a habit.

Semi-dry screed by hand is made from a solution consisting of the same components, but only the ratio of sand to cement is selected 1: 2.As mentioned earlier, fiber reinforcement is used to increase strength, avoid cracking and shrinkage, which is typical for cement mortars.

The fiber is a polymer fiber with a length of 6 to 18 mm and a thickness of 30-35 μm. The novelty makes it possible to make concrete and gypsum products more durable, due to uniform distribution throughout the volume of the mixture. This arrangement of particles, closing up with each other, creates enormous resistance to the concrete layers, securely fastening them and creating a monolith.

Types of semi-dry screed depending on the purpose of the room

According to the method of execution, the semi-dry screed can be machine type and manual. The first type implies the use of special equipment for kneading the mixture, feeding it to the place of screed and mashing. Thanks to the application of technology, the process is significantly accelerated and the resultant surface is more qualitative in all respects. In the machine way, you can cover a much larger area of ​​the room for the same time.

Also, depending on the purpose of the room, any screed, including semi-dry, can have a different mounting technology. Making a semi-dry screed with your own hands, the video attached to the article will be an excellent guide. Let's consider some of the most common technologies for creating a screed in the kitchen, which are described in the attached video to the article.

The first method is to level the floor without the need for additional insulation. It can be used not only in private houses, but also in apartments on all floors, without having to worry about repairing neighbors next floor.

To create a semi-dry self-tie, the technology can be different depending on the purpose of the room. But it can also be done differently:

• with guide beacons;
• with islands or small areas.

The first method can be implemented without using a laser level. On the previously prepared surface beacons are mounted. These can be T-shaped perforated strips or profiled square pipes. The main idea of ​​this technology is filling with a mortar or mixture for screeding space between beacons, and the next day or after a minimum of 12 hours, removing them from the floor and putting seams with the same solution followed by trowelling.

We'll take a closer look at the method of creating a screed using a laser level.

Types of floors depending on the required functions

Depending on the required functions from the premises itself, for example, the installation of heating is required or not, it is possible to divide the floors made with a semi-dry screed into two types:

• without heating;
• with heating.

Technology for creating a semi-dry coupler without using beacons and without heating

If it is not required to install a heating system in the floor, the semi-dry floor screed with your own hands in the apartment is performed solely for finishing the surface.

The semi-dry screed does not require further alignment. Due to careful troweling during the installation, the surface is perfectly even and smooth.

Substrate preparation

In order to obtain a stable and even concrete floor, it is necessary to prepare the base as qualitatively as possible. To do this, using a vacuum cleaner or a broom with a soft pile carefully sweep the rough floor. Large cracks, potholes and fossae must first be covered with a conventional solution. Thus, aligning it with more. An old mortar that is not part of a reinforced concrete slab or a monolith must be removed with a bit and a hammer.

Cleaned from dust and debris the surface must be covered with fastening primer or other similar material. Modern acrylic soils, apart from gluing, have excellent antiseptic properties, so good impregnation guarantees always dry floor.

If the base is loose enough, several layers of soil can be applied. It is important to remember that the strength of the rough floor depends on the properties of the screed.

An indispensable condition for creating a quality screed is the installation of a damper tape around the perimeter of the room. It is required to compensate for the expansion of the floor as a result of temperature changes. As it can be used pieces of foam( foam polyethylene 4 mm thick), a width of 15 cm For convenience, it is better to paste on any glue.

After processing and drying the floor, you can start creating a semi-dry tie with your own hands, the video process of which is available in this article. At once a lot of the mixture should not be cooked, because the technology in question implies the creation of orientation sites-islands, which will later be leveled.

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Preparation of a mixture for a semi-dry screed

To prepare a mortar, you can use a ready mix, which is sold in bags in any construction shop. Or you can prepare yourself from sand and cement. Sand must be carefully sifted through a fine sieve. It is necessary that in the process of work( leveling and mashing) there are no problems with small pebbles and garbage, which is abundant in river sand.

Cement is better to apply 500 brands and 1 category. To prepare a solution in a ratio of 1: 3, mix cement with sand and mix thoroughly.

Uneven or incompletely mixed mixture may not be sufficiently plastic, which will significantly worsen the parameters of the screed.

To improve the thermal insulation properties, avoid cracking and shrinkage, it is recommended to add a little fiber. There are several dosages for obtaining certain properties. On average, 1 to 3 cubic meters of screed requires between 0.6 and 0.9 kg of fiber. It is added directly to the mixture or into the water. It is important to mix thoroughly.

If a concrete mixer is used, the mixing time is 15-20% higher than when mixing a conventional solution. It is important to achieve an even distribution of the fiber particles throughout the volume of the container.

Advantages and disadvantages of semi-dry screed

Semi-dry floor screed plus and minus also has. Positive aspects have been described earlier in the article. By cons are only a fairly long process of leveling and mashing the semi-dry screed.

Water ratio in solution

solution When adding water, care should be taken. It is important not to overdo it, because due to excessive fluidity, the process of work will deteriorate significantly, which will lead to a decrease in quality.

In order to check the amount of liquid in the solution, it is enough to crush some of it in the fist. At the same time between the fingers should not show through the moisture, and the lump itself with the expansion of the palm remains unchanged.

Seven is brought to a uniform state of consistency, and they begin to work.

Creation of island beacons

When creating orientation plots, you should apply the technology "wet on wet".That is, before applying the solution, the surface of the roughing floor must be moistened, moreover, it should be done with a better glue mixture. As an option, glue for tiles, diluted to the consistency of kefir or liquid sour cream, can be applied. Immediately proceed to create an indicative site. To do this, just put the mixture just about ready for a wet spot. And level with plastic flexible rake or other similar tool.

It is not necessary to buy a rake in the store of household goods, you can perform the process with an ordinary trowel, evenly leveling a pile and loosening large gluing together.

After loosening and uniform distribution of the solution along the reference area( lighthouse), it needs to be well taken up. To do this, you can simply look like a flat-treaded footwear or use a hand tool. Well squashed surface is rubbed with a float. It is better to use polyurethane, as a semi-dry cement screed creates significant resistance.

The ground surface is periodically monitored using a ruler and a previously installed laser level on the center of the room. It is recommended to do this in several places on the site. Small dimples are filled again with a mixture and again are rubbed until the ideal smoothness is obtained. Everything, the first lighthouse is ready. You can start making the next one. It must be done at a distance of 15-20 cm closer than the length of the rule.

The rule is recommended to use a rectangular cross-section and they should work strictly in a perpendicular position.

Slightly hardened and hardened beacons should be placed at the corners or edges of the room at the distance indicated above. This will allow us to cover a larger perimeter of space with further work. While the islands freeze, you can prepare the rest of the solution. Its volume is easily calculated, online calculator.

Further, the process is as follows:

• The mixture is distributed evenly over the remaining space or small areas. It is consolidated, rubbed and aligned by several passes with a rule to an ideal comparison of the plane between the beacons.
• It is better to connect the beacons with guide strips in parallel, in order to obtain a kind of skids to work with the screed in the center of the room.

The whole process of working with a semi-dry screed is quite long and requires some diligence, therefore, it should be taken with maximum responsibility.

The device of a semi-dry screed requires a moist environment for high-quality crystallization of cement. Therefore, a polyethylene film is used, it is covered with ready-made screed sections for several days. If you do not apply it, then the next day and not earlier than 12 hours, carefully moving around the screed, it must be thoroughly moistened with water for the same reasons.

Video instruction for creating a semi-dry coupler

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For moving around the screed, it is recommended to use special walkers like snowmobiles, but only with a solid flat surface. This eliminates the possibility of defects and dips when moving along it. The complete pouring cycle is at least 1 week at a temperature above 150 ° C.

Electrically heated floor

The technology of floor heating with electric heating consists of the use of heat-insulating materials, such as expanded polystyrene and foam foam. Over them, it is mandatory to lay a steel mesh to reinforce the screed, and it should be in its middle. Detailed technology and the work process can be viewed in the attached video.

Opinion on the quality of a semi-dry floor screed

Vaughn is an example when the technology of manufacturing a dry floor screed is broken.