Level a Concrete Slab and Heating Wires with Self Leveler

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how to self level on concrete Henock writes, “I want to level my concrete basement family room/bedroom to match the hight of the tiles I have in the hallway. I want to pour at once, but where would I stand as I level it with slotted squeegee? The room is aprox 12 by 10. Should I divide into squares and work that way? Besides I am hoping to stain it later and will not mind having markings (connection points that may show up do the division) instead of one big continue concrete floor look. What do you think? How long do I have to wait before removing the barrier (2 by 4) to continue and pour the next area? I will be using the [Levelquik] RS (avaialbe at homedepot)”

Henock, thanks for the question. We’ve worked extensively with Levelquik over concrete and should be able to help you with this one…

Some Self Levelers Aren’t Suitable for Wear Surfaces

The first thing you need to know is that not all self leveling underlayments are suitable for floor surfaces. Levelquik warns against this on the bag, and on their technical data sheet (look under limitations). In other words, even if you seal it, it isn’t designed for foot traffic. The underlayment is relatively soft. Even foot traffic during construction will generate a fair amount of dust in the room. It scratches easily and will eventually wear down. While we have never used a self leveler as a wear surface, others can be used this way. Quikrete is one such example… Their Fast Setting Floor Resurfacer and Standarad Floor Resurfacer can be used for this. Here’s a link to their products’ technical data sheet.

Self Levelers are Expensive

Even if you go with Quikrete, it’s probably not the most economical way to raise a floor. One bag of will raise a 50 square foot area only 1/8 of an inch. For our nearly 1000 square foot basement, we had to use 60 bags of LevelQuik just to get 3/8″ over the heating wire. In your situation, you’ve got about 120 square feet. If you need to raise that 3/8 of an inch, you’ll need about 8 bags. At $30/per, that’s $240.

Alternatives: Tile? Vinyl? Concrete?

Instead of relying on an SLU for the surface, you could lay tile or vinyl over the existing floor. Steps for this are pretty simple (but outside the scope of this article). You could use an SLU if you need to level an uneven surface first, but I generally wouldn’t use it just to raise the floor. You could also pour real concrete, but it would need to be 2″ thick to get a good bond so then you’re talking about demo’ing the floor. Seems like an unreasonable solution.

As far as a plan to stain the SLU, Quikrete supports this but I would be skeptical about getting the color you want. You should come up with a way to test it first.

Something to consider here as well is resale value. You said the basement is a family room/bedroom. Would it make more sense to install carpeting or tile in this area? In our area, we think a stained concrete in the basement wouldn’t be considered a selling feature.

How to Pour SLU Effectively

While we don’t think the SLU solution is right for you, we still want to answer your questions…

If you were spreading a 10×12 room, you can probably stand in an adjacent room and use the squeegee from the doorway. If you decide to divide the room with temporary barriers, you can remove the boards once the SLU starts to set up. In the case of Levelquik RS or Quikrete’s Fast setting product, that’s probably about 45-60 minutes. You said you were planning to use Levelquik RS. For this size job, that’s probably OK, but keep in mind that RS starts to freeze 5 minutes after pour, with an additional 5 minutes of work time. As long as you follow a structured process to pour the self leveler, you’ll probably be fine with RS. For added safety, look into Levelquik’s ES (Extended Setting) product, or Quikrete’s Standard Floor Resurfacer.

Finally, we used Levelquik ES in our video tutorial on using an SLU over heating wires. Might be worth a look if you’re still heading down this path.

Thanks for the question, Henock!