I have no idea when I first heard of self-leveler, but it was long before I ever owned a home. I remember my brother and I were kind of fascinated by it. We must have seen it being used on some home improvement show. In my mind it worked like magic. Pour it and watch it level itself out to a smooth, perfect new floor. It didn’t quite work out that way for me. Not that way at all.
Why did I need self-lever anyway?? Well if you recall from my ongoing family room renovation, I tore out the carpet and was planning to tile over the concrete slab. When I was inspecting the floor I realized that the floor was in fact flat, but it sloped toward the kitchen. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching tile installation, and despite getting conflicting info (of course) I agree that you can in fact lay tile on a sloped floor as long as it is flat. Think about shower floors that are sloped toward a drain. The tile will adhere and be secured to the surface as long as it’s flat. So I had a decision to make… 1) Adhere the tile to the concrete sub floor as it is. 2) Use self-leveler to even out the floor or 3) Use extra mortar under the tile at the low points of the room. My new buddy from the tile section of Home Depot recommended option 3, but I was afraid to cut corners so I went with option 2, the self-leveler.
I watched a ton of YouTube videos and read a lot of info online and even spoke to a few actual humans. Here’s the best of what I learned — Self-leveler doesn’t really level any better than any other liquid. Think of self leveler as pancake batter. You pour it in a pan and it forms a nice level pancake. It’s flat right? But the batter didn’t spread out to the whole pan, right? It spread a little and then stopped. But… if you used a spatula you could possibly spread the badder out around the whole pan. It would be a lot thinner, but it would still level itself out. But it surely isn’t going to fill the pan and find level all on its own. Same with the floor. There is a lot of spreading and smoothing that must happen with self-leveler. And it takes time to do all that spreading, which can be a problem, because self-leveler sets pretty quickly. You cannot pour all your buckets at once and start leveling. You must level as you go. It takes at least two people (with most people recommending 4-6 people) so one person can mix the leveler (water + a package of leveling powder) while the other person spreads it. We did not worry about cleaning out the buckets, which a third person could have done. Most people recommend you wear spiked cleats or some other way to elevate your feet off the floor so you wouldn’t leave footprints in the leveler. I thought we had a pair of those strap on crampons used to walk on ice, but I guess we don’t, so I just skipped it. I did buy a squeegee on a stick, but it sucked for this. (It worked really well spreading the asphalt sealer though, so it wasn’t a total waste!) It would have been better to make wide notches in the squeegee so it didn’t pull so much of the leveler around. Oops.
I ended up making my own YouTube video in case anyone else is out there researching self-leveler. What do you think?
Self-Leveling Products
I read all the reviews. All the products suck in their own way. There was no clear winner. But I was afraid to use the stuff from Lowe’s. So Home Depot it was. I used the entire system…
Pre-Mixed Floor Patch
LevelQuick Latex Primer
LevelQuik RS 50 lb. Self-Leveling Underlayment
18 in. Driveway Squeegee
Tile Trowel
Preparation
I thoroughly cleaned the floor by scraping off all the adhesive from the carpet, then I swept and vacuumed. 
Then I filled any cracks or weird holes with the floor patch. We tore out part of our fireplace and hearth, so there were quit a few cracks and holes from the demo. They were super easy to fix, I did it on a Friday night while my kids had a dance party in their PJs.
I also taped off the built-in bookshelves. (Read about the built-ins HERE) 
The next morning I primed the floor. Some people skip this step, but I figured why mess with it. The primer was cheap and it was easy to apply. I poured it on the floor then brushed it on with a paint roller. I did use a cheap foam brush around the edges of the room. Done. Dried in a few hours.
The other important thing is to is create dams so the leveler is contained. I taped off around the base of the drywall with masking tape. I also attached wood to the back of my new half-wall and taped that off as well.
Applying the Self-Leveler
We got 8 buckets and 8 bags of self-leveler. You totally don’t need to use new buckets nor do you need one for each bag of mix, but we didn’t have any buckets lying around that weren’t already being used. Hubby mixed and poured and spread. I thought he should mix the leveler on the back deck so he could pass the buckets to me through the window. I should have had him mix down on the gravel though, because it was a pain to clean up after. Anyway… more tips… Use COLD water because warm water will make the mix set faster. Measure and add water to the bucket, then add the bag of self-leveler and mix. We had to buy a new 1/2″ corded hammer drill because that was what we needed for the mixing attachment. It turns out that the mixing took way longer than the pouring and spreading, so I was able to rinse out the buckets and get them filled with the proper amount of water so hubby just had to add the powder and mix. So we didn’t end up using all the buckets which was nice.
Let’s ignore the fact that I totally misread the bag and added the wrong amount of water, my method for measuring the water was spot on. I used a leftover container, added the “proper”amount of water then drew a line on the container with a Sharpie. I even drilled some holes at the line so if it was overfilled the excess water would drain out. It worked very well after I re-read the measurements on the bag.
I spread the leveler with a squeegee and a trowel. 
Results
I thought I rocked the application, but… it turned out terribly. This is what it looked like wet.
It was dry by the next morning. It’s crazy that it looks like it has ripples in it, but that’s just color variation and it’s actually a smooth surface. Sort of.
I was super disappointed with the results. The floor I started with was perfectly flat, it was just slanted. After the leveler the floor was nowhere near flat. There were peaks and valleys everywhere. It was a pain in the butt to tile… but more on that in another post.
Here’s what’s been happening with the family room:
- Ladies Demo + Wine Night
- Family Room Can of Worms
- Family Room Gets Wired Up
- Making Progress on the Family Room
- Design Choices for the Family Room
- Family Effort this Weekend
- The Built-in Bookshelf and Why It’s Not Finished
- Built-in Bookshelf Using IKEA BESTA
- Self-Leveling Concrete <<You are here
- Tiling Herringbone Floor
- Grouting the Herringbone Floor
- New Step into Family Room
- Lego Coffee Table
- Under Couch Lego Storage
Hi Liz….So do you think you just worked the leveler too long so it was starting to set while you were dragging it around? I can’t see any other way it would have left peaks. I’m considering using this stuff to level a small bathroom floor (about 1/4 the size of your family room).
BTW, redheads rock…
Im not sure. I think I moved it around too much and went back to blen older areas I should have left alone. But don’t be afraid. I did my bathroom AFTER I did the family room and it was perfect. I used 2 bags and did it entiry myself (meaning I had to stop and mix the second batch). Worked perfectly. Did you see that post? http://smartgirlsdiy.com/2015/08/hex-tile-bathroom-floor/
Thanks for the video and the blog post. I had a half bath plumbed in my basement (had to dig up a trench in the concrete floor to put in new lines to the main sewer line). The area that is going to be a very rudimentary half bath needs some serious leveling. I figure this was the perfect area for a DIY project since if I mess it up, it can’t be worse than it is right now – no fixtures and rough, uneven concrete. 🙂
I’ll also be framing it in myself. I am inspired by you and will video the effort.
That’s awesome Morgan. Thanks for your kind words! I always do a lot of research online before I do a project. I check both the professional tutorials and the real-life ones because I like to know how it will go for us regular folks. It sounds like you have yourself a good little project there. I think if you’ve done all the hard work you might as well go for more than just rudimentary. Have you seen my bathroom renovation project? I’m still working on it, but I did the self-leveler in there after the family room and it was sooooo much easier. Just 2 bags and I did it while no one else was home.
Good luck and I can’t wait to see the video!
Ahem, wish I’d seen this sooner. I used self leveler on a small area (fireplace hearth) with great results, and so thought I was prepared to do a whole room (kitchen). Of course I tried to do this by myself on a very hot day… Needless to say panic ensued when I realized it was setting way too fast and not really all that spreadable. I also hadn’t primed the floor because I had no idea I was supposed to (to be fair it’s not mentioned on the screed I used).
My solution was to add more water (based on what I’d seen the workers do when they did our study floor). It was not a great success. It ended up level but cracked, and some areas delaminated from the concrete floor beneath and had to be chipped off and redone. The cracks are fortunately not a big deal as it’s getting a floating laminate floor on top and not tiles.
Have definitely learnt how not to do this! I’ve since leveled a small entrance hall with slightly better results, but ended up with peaks and valleys like yours. Not sure if I’ll attempt it again.
Well I’m glad we’ve found each other now! Seems like we’re living parallel lives on opposite sides of the world. After using self leveler on this huge room rather unsuccessfully, I used it again in my bathroom and it worked perfectly. http://smartgirlsdiy.com/2015/08/hex-tile-bathroom-floor/ I recently made over my fireplace using feather finish concrete, but haven’t even had a chance to write about that yet. Please come back and visit again. BTW – I spent a month in South Africa about 14 years ago.
I actually found this video on YouTube and wanted a personal opinion for someone who has worked with the self leveling floor first hand (from someone who doesn’t sell it…)
Recently purchased a 2 bd 1 bath condo – very industrial, modern-ish style – but whoever lived here before thought it would be a great idea to put beige carpet in the living areas. To go along with the style of the condo we really love the look of the polished concrete floors – however due to the weight this is not an option (unless we want to end up on the ground floor of the building.)
We stumbled across self leveling and thought it would be a great substitute, but I’m a little worried about the durability and longevity of the product. Granted it is somewhat like concrete – the last thing we want is to pour this all over the living room and it be cracked and chipped in 6 months. We have looked at coating it with a epoxy resin to help protect and give it that polished shine.
And feedback would be awesome! Looked at a few of your other projects – keep up the great work!