Proper substrate preparation

It is often due to poor sub­strate pre­par­a­tion when the floor seems to bounce under your feet or makes a hol­low sound. Also impact sound, cracks and bumps can be the res­ult of improp­er sub­strate pre­par­a­tion. There are three cri­ter­ia that should be ful­filled if you want to ensure prop­er pre­par­a­tion and avoid sub­sequent rec­ti­fic­a­tions.

1. Test the surface strength (scratch test)

The sub­floor is the found­a­tion lay­er of the floor. In order to ensure a firm bond between sub­floor and adhesive/floor cov­er­ing, the found­a­tion must be of suf­fi­cient strength. This can be tested with the so-called scratch test. For this pur­pose, a grid of scratch lines is applied on the sur­face using a sharp met­al object. If there is no flak­ing along the edges of the scratch lines, the sub­floor has suf­fi­cient strength.

2. Produce an even subfloor

Anoth­er import­ant cri­terion is an even sub­floor. If there are cav­it­ies or hol­lows, hard floor­ing mater­i­als like tiles, par­quet and lam­in­ate will eas­ily break. Hol­low areas also cause unpleas­ant foot­fall sound. And when under­floor heat­ing was installed, the heat is trans­ferred less effect­ively into the rooms. Although resi­li­ent floor­ing like lux­ury vinyl tiles and car­pets adapt to the bumps, this is not a pretty sight and often the cause of cus­tom­er com­plaints.