Boarded dry screed systems for floors that cannot wait to dry out and cannot take the weight of a wet one. Laid over a levelling layer, jointed and finished in a day, ready for a covering almost straight away.
There is no water in a dry screed, so there is nothing to dry. The floor goes down and the next trade follows it, which on a tight refurbishment programme is worth more than anything else on this page.
A boarded system weighs a fraction of what an equivalent wet screed does, so it works on timber floors and upper storeys where the structure will not carry a poured screed.
Where you cannot lose height, a dry screed adds far less than a wet one. That makes it the usual answer for retrofits, threshold heights and floors that have to meet an existing level.
Loose levelling granulate or an insulation layer set out flat first, because a board system is only as flat as what it is sitting on. This is where a dry screed is won or lost.
Resilient layers and acoustic boards where a floor has a separating performance to hit, specified to the test rather than assumed to pass.
Low profile heating panels and a boarded overlay, which heats up and responds far faster than a heavy wet screed does. A good pairing with a retrofit heat pump.
It is a floor made from boards rather than from a mix. Gypsum fibre or calcium sulphate boards are laid over a levelling layer, then glued and screwed together into one continuous deck. The result does the same job as a wet screed, giving you a flat, sound base for a covering, without introducing any water to the building.
Effectively straight away. The boards take foot traffic as they go down and the adhesive at the joints is normally set within hours, so a covering can follow the same day or the next. That is the whole reason the system exists.
Yes, and it is one of the best uses for it. Existing floorboards or a joisted deck get checked for movement and fixed off first, then levelled and boarded over. A wet screed on that structure would usually be too heavy and would put moisture where you do not want it.
Yes, using low profile grooved panels with the pipe set into them and the boards over the top. It has less mass than a wet screed, so it warms up and cools down much faster, which suits a house that is heated in bursts. A wet screed holds heat longer and suits steady running.
For normal domestic and light commercial loading, yes, and it is manufactured to a consistent strength rather than depending on a mix. Where it is not the answer is heavy point loads, racking, vehicles or anything industrial, and on those floors we would put a concrete slab or a wet screed down instead and say so.
Based in Bolton, working across the North West as a matter of course and taking planned work anywhere in the country.