Speaking of the Devil .
Will be at ARDEX Technical Training Center in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
(near Pittsburgh) from the 6th to 10th for the Ardex training seminar . Must of flashed thousands of feet of that stuff , But it don;t hurt to keep up with training .

Oh nick--wanna practice on my floor??? Surely you've got more to tell me--to give me confidence
I can do this right, right? :O)

As soon as I think this is the right thing to do, I hear the replay of someone (floorguy? I just can't remember who, for sure!)
saying it might turn out worse or don't do it if you've never done it before--on other threads I've read.

So, when do you ever get to do it 'before' if you never do it? hahaha

Make sure you vacuum it, sponge it down, and then prime it. It won't come loose with a stick of dynamite. As for mixing, follow the directions explicitly. Too much water, and it'll develop a yellow skin that will let loose anything you bond to it. Not enough water, and it won't flow the way it's supposed to, and make the floor worse than before you started.

Thank you, Bill! I will definitely be careful!! I've already mopped three times, run the sweeper and even broomed the floor
before I've primed it. I went back, after 3 hours and touched up areas along the walls!

I plan to do the leveling tomorrow--gulp!!! I will definitely read the instructions and adhere to them carefully--hopefully!

What Bill said . Don't mix it by hand . use a drill and paddle bit . Good Luck .

Nick,

Been to that Ardex school too...was a great help in learning how to place the product.

Hey j,

You should be able to get the product to flow well and fill any birdbath you might have. Read the instructions, read them again, and then make sure you follow them to the 'T'. Your 'squeegee on a pole' might be OK to place the product, but the professional tools recommended for the product work best. Do you have your golf shoes?

Hey Glenn! Thank you for your input! My hubby has some old golf shoes he's offered for the project! :O)

So, you're thinking I need to donn them and traipse to the wall edges to trowel feather the edges?

I am so nervous! I'm sitting here, rather than 'taking it on' working up the courage!! I've read everything I
can find about the product on the internet and am just waiting to get the gumption to do it!

I have always been an adventurer when it comes to remodeling work but somehow, this one has me intimidated!!!

And you are wise to be intimidated! But...you CAN get this right if you follow the directions faithfully.

The golf shoes are to facilitate placement of the material. With the cleated shoes you are able to walk in the product and work areas that need touch up. Your areas may not be big enough to make the golf shoes necessary, but you'll have to decide if traipsing around in the stuff will be necessary.

Feather edges and stuff...but be careful not to overwork the material.

In repairs such as yours...I map out the birdbaths (low spots) by using a six foot straight edge to find them. I use a permanent marker to outline low areas to helps me screed in just the right amount of product.

Do you have enough product? If you run out of leveler, be aware that all will not be lost. You can do sucessive 'lifts' with the stuff and they will adhere fine to the previous.

Make sure you dam off or dike areas where you don't want to allow the product to flow, such as beneath wall plates for instance or through doorways into adjacent rooms.

Good luck brave person!

They told me baseball shoes Glen , if i bring Golf shoes they won't see me.
Devil hates a coward Hey , You'll be fine .
it is really nice stuff to work with .

Oh, thank you, Glenn! Thankfully, I did have all the high and low areas mapped out with a sharpie. High spots
were circled and notations as to what will need less fill than another indicated, and they show through the primer.

There are no registers in the flooring and the adjacent areas are done in porcelain tile, set in thinset (of course)
and are about 1/2" higher than this floor! At the entry points, the slab is higher anyway, and I don't expect the 'flow'
to get to those--but then again, I'll know the real truth when in the midst of the leveling!

The widest area that will be leveled with be about 5-6 feet!

My instinct will be to try and feather the edges but I'm thinking, if it appears that there should be feathering, I
can finish off (after it's completely set-up and dry) with some of the Henry stuff if a transition is needed!

Is that a viable option?

Oh, missed your comment, Nick, while constructing my response!!
Thank you for the pep-talk!

Your instincts are good. Do try and feather any edges though, as the surface tension or some other phenomenon of the material does tend to 'round' the edges somewhat resulting in a little high spot at the edge...'sometimes'...

The material is extremely difficult to grind or sand, so the best you can do to get it as good as you can with each lift is what you want to aim for. You can get on top of the product after the initial set has occured and then you can scrape up any placement errors before any subsequent lift or adjustment.

Nick,

Baseball shoes are probably better than golf shoes, but the concept is basically the same. I know they frown on ice creepers or any metal cleated shoe, as the metal cleats can mar the primer as you walk in the material. But a good point there Nick.

Glenn

Okay we did it! I have to say, the low fill areas worked out very well, having a very smooth look, already, but the higher
spots were my undoing!

I don't think it would be suitable for something like vinyl flooring (our results) but for our purposes I'm thinking
it will be okay! It still looks a little rippled in some areas, and I will probably feel the urge to fill in some spots
with Henry if it can be done.

Would I have to prime the Ardex (dried) before Henry or would I treat it as any slab and be able to put it right on it?

You wouldn't want me to do YOUR job--yet! Glad it was our floor I worked on and not someone elses!! Sigh!

Nick--I'm pretty sure the Devil hates me already--no big whoop to me--I'm betting he loves the cowards--he thrives on
intimidation, I'm thinking--and I was intimidated, for sure! ;o)

Sounds like you did real good!

You do not need to prime the Ardex when dressing it up with Henry's patch; put it right on.

I keep a little Windex spray bottle with me fulled with water .If the patch starts to harden on the floor , give it a little spray . it will make it workable for you .
not a lot now , just a little spray .

Glenn and Nick--you guys have been so nice and encouraging and helpful! I wish you lived nearby--I'd bake you a cake
or make you a great steak dinner or somethin'!! :o)

Yep, I will not be happy with this floor till I do some of that Henry's fill! We have one more bag of the Ardex left,
and I've toyed with putting it down and hoping it will fix the slight inequities but---the stuff that has been down since
yesterday around 1:30 p.m. still 'looks' uncured, enough, to me (the novice) to feel safe putting a moisture barrier on
and start laying the planking down. If it's taking so long to cure then we'd be out another couple of days and we will
have lost our window of opportunity to have our one SIL helps us lay the floor (he's working off a loan to do it) even
though I feel very confident I could do that part on my own with hubby making all the cuts! We just need to let him do this! :o)

So, I'm glad to hear I can just put 'Henry' over the Ardex without priming--I had guessed that might be the case but I
also thought I might have to prime the Ardex that's down, in order to put more Ardex on top, so that would add to the
delay considerably, as well, and then if the floor indeed is not completely cured, I might not should put the primer on it,
just yet--which again....etc.!!

So, trying to use some logic--I guess it's good ole' Henry! :o)

I so appreciate the support you guys have given me, again, and I heartily thank you, again!!!! :o) We need to save as
much money as we can on this project, given the 60%+ loss everyone invested have lost, and had counted on to make retirement
more 'doable' and without your help we might have had to forget the flooring we have, sell it to our daughter and SIL and
gotten carpet, which would still have been more expensive than the deal we got on this stuff!!! Sigh--if we were just starting out
with this project, and didn't have the flooring from last summer, we would not have undertaken doing it at all, at this time!!!

Better to let it cure .
You can put a fan down there to circulate the air . it will cure much faster . or a portable dehumidifier.

The curing process uses up most of the water in the product. The Ardex instructions will tell you when it would be safe to proceed with your install. The Ardex website will have links to pdf files regarding installation, but I guess you already have seen those.

You're right, Glenn--I've researched all of this pretty thoroughly and they say you can lay your flooring 16 hours after
leveling! However--the deeper fills are STILL very dark, looking damp to me!

I did do the Henry fill today! Went much better with hubby doing the measuring of the water, etc. and then using the paddle
blade on a drill and then handing off the bucket to me while I sat on the floor. All I had to do was spread and feather and
recheck with the straight edge.

I hope, the combo of Ardex being slightly damp *looking* and the Henry on top will be finally cured by tomorrow evening
when our SIL will come after work, eat pizza and help us with the install! The Henry-fill was no more than 1/8"-3/8" at the
most! The Ardex was about 1/4" to 3/8" at the deepest areas!

Sigh! I'm SO ready to be done with this!! :o/

Use at least a 6-mil plastic moisture barrier, under any 2-n-1 under cushion, for your floating floor.

'Did it' floorguy! We installed the 6 ml barrier and because the cork underlayment required gluing down,
my hubby just couldn't deal with that idea, considering all the VERY HARD WORK we've already put in with
trying to deal with this poorly poured slab.

We have 2/3 of the flooring in as of last night and with the tremendous help of our SIL! Thank you, Lord!!!
It is mostly very stable but the areas in question that we leveled with Ardex and yet had to go back with more 'Henry'
are very, very slightly flexing! Sigh!

I don't know whether to consider ripping the flooring up and starting afresh--filling in more or just accept the
slight squish in spots and hope for the best!

I love the look though!!!

You mean to say that the laminate is flexing, not the filler, yes?

That's right Glenn! The laminate is every so slightly flexing in some spots! I did fold over some roofing felt
or 'tar paper' (as it was referred to most of my life growing up with a Dad that was a builder, in the South)
and was able to slide some between the moisture barrier and the laminate in the more accessible areas and
it seems to help.

Do you think that could ever be a problem if we finish out the floor with the felt in place?

And, btw, everytime I say something as emphatic as I did like I did when I said, "I feel very sure I could do the laminate laying myself, really!", I wind up having to eat my words. No way could I have done it without our SIL! I want so much to finish it, but we will wait till he can finish it. It's not the laying down, or laying out the pattern, it's about making sure the seams are tight. He is very fastidious, and his hands are very strong so that as my hubby and I and our SIL lifted the row to snap it in the groove, he worked his way down making sure it not only 'snapped' but was pulled in very tight. All in all, he did a fabulous job!!!

So, again, will the roofing be alright in place (doubled over having been cut in a strip that narrows in on two sides of one end, so that when it is folded it makes the edges taper out or feather out from the doubled middle)?

It is common to not be able to meet spec exactly. It is almost beyond capabilities to meet some of the strict specs. With a floating floor, it is common to cut shims from the cardboard cartons.