Flooring installation in Batumi: from screed to skirting

Which floor covering we lay in which room

We choose the covering by water and by who will live in the apartment: the owner all year round, or guests after whom the floor is mopped every day.

An apartment usually ends up with two or three coverings. Laminate laid floating on an underlay costs less to lay and copes better with small level differences, but it can't take water in the joints, so we keep it for dry rooms. In a studio or a kitchen-living room we more often lay vinyl flooring, click SPC or glue-down LVT: it runs as one continuous floor from the front door to the window. By the entrance, in the bathroom and on the balcony you need porcelain floor tiles, which aren't bothered by puddles or by pebbles from the beach.

Order of work: from screed to skirting

The floor is done in the middle of a renovation. Everything that can't be reached later goes under the screed, and we lay dry floor coverings after the wet work and the first coat of paint, so that filler and primer don't drip onto them.

1. pipes and underfloor heating loops that are cast into the screed;
2. screed, and drying to the moisture level the floor covering requires;
3. levelling wherever the screed failed the measurement;
4. porcelain tiles in the bathroom, the hallway and on the balcony;
5. walls, ceilings and the first coat of paint;
6. laminate, SPC vinyl, engineered wood or parquet;
7. interior doors, skirting, the final coat of paint.

Porcelain tiles go down before the dry coverings: they are cut with a wet saw, and the adhesive and grout add moisture to the apartment. We fit the interior doors after the floor: the frame is set to the finished floor covering without pinning down the floating floor, and the door leaf is trimmed to the same level. A door fitted to the screed will later catch on the laminate.

Subfloor: what we check before laying

We check the screed for flatness, moisture and strength. Flatness is checked with two instruments. A straightedge finds local dips, and a laser level shows the overall slope: because of it, a wardrobe later stands askew and a step appears between rooms. For laminate and click SPC we accept a gap of up to 2 mm under a two-metre straightedge, and for glue-down vinyl up to 1 mm. If the instructions for the range are stricter, we follow them.

We measure moisture in every room and recheck doubtful spots with a carbide tester. The limit is set by the manufacturers of the floor covering and the adhesive, and until the screed has dried to it we don't lay a dry floor covering, even if the deadline is pressing. Strength matters most under glued coverings: parquet, engineered wood, LVT and porcelain tiles. Adhesive won't hold a top layer that turns to dust under a nail, and an area that sounds hollow we break out and pour again.

Small bumps are ground down, and cracks are opened up and filled with repair compound. If the screed is flat only in places, we pour a thin self-levelling layer. We photograph the measurements with the instrument in the frame, and you see them in the report before laying.

Floating floor: vapour barrier, underlay and gaps

Laminate and click SPC vinyl are not fixed to the base: the floor lies on an underlay and changes size with the humidity and temperature in the apartment. On concrete we lay a vapour barrier film under it, unless the underlay has one built in, because the screed goes on giving off moisture for a long time. We take the underlay from the floor covering manufacturer's list. It doesn't even out level differences, and too much softness under a rigid plank breaks the click joints. Glue-down vinyl, parquet and engineered wood are laid without underlay, on primer and adhesive.

At walls, pipes, columns and door frames we leave the gap the range instructions specify, and for laminate it is usually wider than for SPC. It is covered by skirting fixed to the wall, not to the floor. The floor has to move freely, so we don't stand a built-in wardrobe or a run of kitchen units on the floor shared with the rest of the room: under them we make a separate section with a gap, or lay porcelain tiles. Every range has a maximum floor length without a break, and in a long apartment or in narrow doorways between rooms we fit a dividing profile.

Thresholds and joints between different coverings

A threshold-free floor is planned when the screed is poured: under each covering, the screed is laid lower than the finished floor by exactly the thickness of that covering with its adhesive or underlay. If the screed has already been poured at one level, we make up a difference of a few millimetres with a self-levelling layer under the thinner covering. When the levels match, the joint is covered by a narrow profile flush with the floor. When they don't, we show you in advance where a step will remain and move it under a door leaf, not into the middle of the kitchen-living room.

We leave a step in two places, and on purpose. At the way out to the balcony, the threshold and the sill flashing stop rain getting under the floor of the room. In the shower area the floor is lower than in the hallway, so that water doesn't spill out past the door. In every other doorway, a step of more than a couple of millimetres is a defect to us, and we put it right.

We choose the profile to suit the joint: a metal one in the colour of the floor on a straight line, a flexible one on a curve, and a cork expansion strip where the joint should be almost invisible.

Parquet, engineered wood and old wooden floors

With parquet and engineered wood we settle the climate question first: wood by the sea needs a dehumidifier in winter and a hygrometer in the room, and if you don't live in Batumi, we agree who will check them. Engineered wood with a factory finish isn't sanded on site: once the adhesive has set, only the skirting is left to fit. Block parquet takes longer: after laying it is left to settle, then sanded and finished right in the apartment, and each coat dries separately.

Resale apartments often have solid parquet from the Soviet years. If the base is sound and there is enough wood above the tongue for sanding, sanding the old parquet and refinishing it with new lacquer or oil will cost less than a new floor.

What flooring installation in Batumi costs

The prices in the table are for labour: the floor covering, underlay and adhesive are paid for separately. Laying laminate costs from 20 ₾ per m², click SPC vinyl from 25 ₾. Glued coverings cost more: engineered wood from 51 ₾ per m², porcelain tiles in 60×60–60×120 formats from 75 ₾. Skirting is priced separately, from 13 ₾ per linear metre.

The price goes up with levelling the base, herringbone or diagonal laying, removing the old floor, many doorways and pipes in a small area, and carrying materials up without a service lift. It comes out lower on flat, dry screed and with one covering throughout the apartment. The final cost is set after measuring up and agreeing the estimate: only on site can you see whether the screed will pass the check.

How we inspect the finished floor

We inspect the floor in the whole apartment in one walk-through, room by room: defects most often show where coverings meet. At each joint we lay a straightedge across the seam, and there should be no step under it. We open and close the doors, measure the gap under the door leaf at several points, and check the skirting for gaps at the wall and in the corners. If you are not in Batumi, the site foreman does the same check over a video call.

In the handover file we record the product codes and batch numbers of the floor covering, photos of the base with the measurements, and the underfloor heating layout, if there is one. With the product code it is easier to find the same range later to repair an area.