How do you check floor screeding in Hargeisa?

Floor screeding in Hargeisa is a small trade with a large effect on the finished floor level. A screed that is mixed too wet, laid over a dusty base or worked without a datum will shrink, curl and leave hollow spots. The result is a floor that rocks under furniture, shows ridges in low sunlight and traps water near door thresholds. Most of these faults come from a skills gap in mixing, levelling and curing, not from the cement.

What goes wrong when screeding skills are thin in Hargeisa?

The screed pulls away from the base or curls at the edges when the mix carries too much water and the base was not prepared. A dry, weak mix laid thin over a dusty slab bonds poorly, so a tap with a hammer or a steel rod returns a hollow sound. A wet mix shrinks more than a stiff one, which opens cracks across the field and lifts the edges. Uneven finished levels appear when the team sets a datum on one wall only and works away from it without checking back. The surface then rises and falls against the door line, and tile beds have to be built up in some rooms and cut down in others. Voids under a screed can also collect water, and in a coastal or humid spell that water has nowhere to go. Ask the municipal engineer's office whether it holds records or guidance for screed work on local projects, and treat any answer as a starting point rather than a rule.

How do you check screed work and spot uneven levels?

Check the mix, the thickness and the levels before the screed hardens, because all three are hard to correct later. As a general practice, screed is laid at a thickness set by the project specification, often 40 to 50 mm bonded to a prepared slab and more where it is unbonded, and the mix is stiff enough to hold a ridge when a trowel is drawn through it. Confirm the thickness and mix against the specification and the engineer's direction rather than a rule of thumb. Walk the floor with a 2 m straightedge and a spirit level and record the gap under the straightedge at each room and doorway. Tap the surface with a steel rod and mark hollow areas. Watch one bay from mixing to finishing: how the water is measured, whether the base is swept and primed, whether the datum is transferred around the room, and how long the screed is left before anyone walks on it. Ask for a trial bay and test it the same way before the rest of the floor is laid. A [Callout type="tip"]Set a datum around the whole room and mark it on every wall, then check the level back to the datum at each corner before the screed sets.[/Callout]

How do you close the screeding skills gap on site?

Close the gap with a written method, a trial bay and a named supervisor who checks levels, not with a longer CV. Ask the foreman to describe, step by step, how the mix is measured, how the base is prepared and how the datum is carried around the room. If those steps are vague, the crew may be working from habit rather than method. Agree a trial bay in one room or one corner, inspect it after curing, and use it as the reference for the rest of the floor. Keep the water addition to a measured amount and stop the practice of adding water to a mix that is stiffening. Check what the contract allows before you change any instruction or hold any payment, and put agreed corrections in writing. Walk a recent floor the same contractor finished, in a building of similar age, and look at the door thresholds and the corners where curling shows first.

What to do next

Ask the finishing supervisor to lay a trial screed bay in one room, then check it after curing with a 2 m straightedge, a spirit level and a tap test. Record the gaps and hollow spots, compare them with the project specification, and agree the corrections in writing before the rest of the floor is screeded.