modern materials sacrilege??

[plasticpigeon]

Following on from the woodworm post, and use of modern materials and methods, I have been thinking about leveling my kitchen floor and the best way to do it since I shall have to take all the quarry tiles up. My plan was to dig out the old lime mortar screed that has turned to sand, level the earth (it is about 50mm out of level at the mo) and lay a new screed of lime onto which I can lay the quarries. I don't really want to dig out tons of earth to put in limecrete, but I got thinking about insulation, and realise that even quite a thin sheet of expanded resin (celotex type stuff say 20mm) can offer significant insulation, so I was thinking about the idea of laying down some insulation boards first. To maintain breathability I was thinking I could perforate the expanded resin insulation with holes using a hole saw making it look a bit like a cheesegrater, and then fill the holes with a lime/perlite mix, which is also quite good at insulating but would be permeable, then lime screed over that and tiles on top. Daft?

 

[middi]

The logic way in deciding what materials you should use to " put in a new kitchen floor" is to eliminate two major obstacles which will restrict your choises.

1) is the existing floor ( including sub-floor ) of historic significance (ie, requiring CO blessing) .
2) if not, is any replacement floor arrangement going to interfere and aggravate the existing elevation walls bretheability ( ie, no existing dpc)

If the answer to the above is a resolute NO then you can do pretty well what you want. You could actually use a DPM lapped onto the dpc, 100mm celotex or similar for insulation onto the dpm and 100mm screed above the insulation. As to how you finish above this, you can take your pick.
Let us face it, you will not be destroying any historically significant material and nobody is going to be any wiser once you have finished the new floor. As long as this is not deterimental to the actual building.

Middi

Edit--- The swiss cheese bit does sound daft