Sales manager Pieter Pruijn, who can boast on more than 30 years of experience with this company, this time wants to talk mainly about the labour phases that come before levelling. After all, what good is a quick-drying levelling compound if you lose masses of time before you can apply it?
"We have to respond to the fact that time saving is an ever-increasing 'issue'. Above all, you also have the increasingly expensive labour and labour shortages and, on top of that, increasing traffic jams. Then you need to be able to work as efficiently as possible throughout the placement process," he says. "Working quickly starts from the earliest preparation stages, which is why this time I want to talk mainly about the steps taken before final levelling."

Everything starts with good preparation
Mr Pruijn outlines how good preparation starts with the subfloor. It comes down to first taking a good look at that subfloor and taking the necessary measurements. For example: does the subfloor consist of wood, tiles,... or is it sandy, dry,... and that you then always draw up a plan of action first, including the right procedures and products.
"Take cracks, for example. Are they, for example, merely shrinkage cracks in a screed or do cracks also cause movement? In the former case, you can ignore the problem, in the latter you need to repair. Exactly the latter is what I want to look at this time, explaining which steps and which products lead to the final - quick-drying! - levelling."
After making it clear to us how all Lecol products are suitable for underfloor heating without exception, for the Benelux market we are first made aware of an exception WAKOL PS 205

Casting Resin.
"This is, in my opinion, a very special product for a floor without underfloor heating. Specifically, it is a fast-curing polymer-modified two-component silicate adhesive for renovating cracks in the screed, as well as gluing skirting boards, metal profiles, plastics and natural stone on absorbent and non-absorbent substrates indoors. I find the drying time very special: after barely one hour, the installer can already continue, count yourself out of your (time) profit!"

"Is there floor heating? Even then we have a solution in-house, this via WAKOL AR 150, a reinforcement fabric mat made of fibreglass fleece. This serves to reinforce levelling compounds on mixed substrates. It is fixed to the substrate in overlapping strips, which is done via the use of the plasticiser WAKOL D 3060 Plasticiser, mixed with a Wakol levelling compound. For the latter, I am thinking, for example, of WAKOL A 850, a stable and fast levelling compound based on calcium sulphate. It can be used for leveling unevennesses in a layer thickness of 0 to 20 mm without dilution and up to 40 mm diluted for preparing unevennesses, filling in steps, levelling door joints and repairing serious damage to the screed indoors. You can count the drying time from as little as 4 hours, which will be music to the ears of the installer."

Priming
The normal further step is, of course, priming. Here, too, Lecol offers various resources. Pieter Pruijn would first like to talk about the silane primer WAKOL MS 330. This is a ready-to-use, one-component product for isolating residual moisture in sand-cement screed floors and priming absorbent and non-absorbent substrates, as well as for reinforcing damaged and/or sandy screeds.

"No epoxy with us, the reasons are well known: it is bad for the user's skin, it is also slow to work and, above all, WAKOL MS 330 Silane Primer does not contain any di-isocyanate either, which means that the training courses that have recently become compulsory are not necessary. WAKOL MS 330 Silane Primer is applied in a thick layer with a special roller or notched trowel A2 and after one hour you're ready to go. Of course, you still need to put a primer over it, because it creates a very smooth subfloor. For this we use the water-based WAKOL Special Primer D 3045, also sold in the UK, which ensures sufficient adhesion because it makes the subfloor very rough. The nice thing about this ready-to-use dispersion primer is that a maximum drying time of one hour is required for this too."

After preparation
The preparation is over, it is time to use the various levelling compounds. In this context, Mr Pruijn selects one in particular: the low-dust, low-tension and cement-bound WAKOL Z 610 for levelling unevenness in layer thicknesses of 1 to 20 mm unmixed, from 10 to 30 mm mixed with quartz sand under wooden floors, textile floor coverings and elastic floor coverings indoors. It is also used for intensively loaded floors, and from 2 mm layer thickness it is suitable under parquet. The REACH chromate-free WAKOL Z 610 levelling compound dust-free is further suitable for heavy-duty use from 3 mm layer thickness and can be used in combination with WAKOL D 3060 plasticiser.

"I personally think this is a special product because it can handle so much," concludes Pieter Pruijn. "In practice, however, you will find that usually around 3 mm thick is levelled up to 5 mm. In this case, for a thickness of 1 to 5 mm, the drying time is barely 6 hours. This means you level in the morning and can continue gluing early in the afternoon. I think a major advantage is that virtually no dust is created and the worker can continue working in complete safety. Even the packaging was designed with the user's health in mind. WAKOL Z 610 levelling compound dust-free is available in 20 kg bags, which greatly reduces the risk of overloading. After drying, the work is almost done. If you're working with PVC, just sand down, remove the last irregularities and vacuum and the floor can be installed. Is it wood? Then even sanding and removing irregularities are not necessary because wood flattens itself sufficiently."