I hope this post helps someone with their self leveling concrete project.

—IF YOU DON’T WANT THE STORY, SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM AND I PUT MY ADVICE IN A NUTSHELL—

The person I bought the house from installed the vinyl flooring you see in the beginning photos and they cracked in less than a year - yay me.

The following photo is the flooring underneath that vinyl. I know right - disgusting. I have never done self leveling concrete before but I watched 7 different videos, read a ton of posts and read people’s stories and researched a ton of different products.

After all this I decided I could handle the project so I bought 7 bags of Henry 555 level pro and 2 bottles of primer. I also bought a squeegee, a push broom, 2 buckets with measuring lines, and a “universal mixing paddle” - which I would use with the drills I already owned.

The first day I followed the instructions on the primer and it took two bottles of primer to cover the floor which was pretty easy and I was feeling confident. (That’s the photo with the white film on the floor)

The second day I got to work and started mixing the concrete powder bags with water - exactly 4.7 L (which is how my buckets were measured by - Liters, even though the bags were measured by quarts but, whatever right?) the mixing was rough work. A lot of heavy lifting and it was really slow too. I knew from my research that the self leveling starts to cure after only 20 minutes so I was rushing. I noticed as I was using the squeegee the concrete was kind of creating lines but I was on a timeline so I hoped it would just level itself out- I was also running out of product, so I was kind of screwed. I ended up using 6 out of the 7 bags I bought. And that janky shiny floor you see is right after I called it for that day.

Looking at it I knew I screwed it up. I had to fix it somehow. So after a ton of research from other people’s botched self leveling jobs (mostly from expensive contractors - yikes), I decided the best thing I could do is pour again. But I needed to do it different.

This time I had four buckets- one that had the measure lines and three that were just buckets (CLEAN). I first had to reprime the floor, but this time I used different product (Levelquik advance self leveling) I used their primer and I only needed one bottle because it required a higher water ratio so that was nice. Also I bought better tools this time: A SPIKED ROLLER ( I cannot emphasize how much this helped), spiked shoes (very helpful but not completely necessary), and a heavy duty mixing paddle (very necessary). Lastly the most important thing that was different with the second pour was the amount of people doing the job. It was me, my fiancé, and my neighbor and his buddy. This allowed me to stay on my spiked shoes and not have to go in and out of the house and drag dirt it. And the load for the mixers and the people carrying it back and forth was lighter. Also the mixing takes so long that’s it’s so helpful to have other people that can be preparing the next batch while the other person mixes.

All in all the second pour felt much smoother - workflow wise and floor wise, lol.

The first pour cost me about $400 for materials

The second pour was about $600 for materials (self leveling concrete ain’t cheap- but it’s cheaper than buying new vinyl flooring every 4 months)

In a nutshell here is my recommendations for anyone that wants to do self leveling:

• You need extra hands, I suggest 3+ people

• Buy more bags than you think you’ll need, double even - you do NOT want to run out

• HAVE THESE MATERIALS   
\- 2 plain buckets 1 measuring bucket    
\- some type of drill or impact driver    
\- a heavy duty mixing paddle    
\- A SPIKED ROLLER - you need this 100%    
\- a squeegee    
\- push broom (for primer)

Optional    
\- spiked shoes    
\- additional buckets    
\- paint brush (small corners with the primer)

Ps - the bags don’t need to have exactly 4.7L of water with them they actually can have between that and 5.2L so just use 5L. It’s much easier.

Self Leveling Concrete