Hi all, this is a great forum! I've learned so much from reading, but had a question that I can't seem to find an answer to.

My project... Install glue down engineered hardwood in master bedroom (330sqft). The floor is a new concrete slab (about 100days old now). Next week I'll be ready to begin prepping the floor, scraping/cleaning, and dealing with any high/low spots. I had a master bathroom that I already completed and used a self leveling concrete in that space with great success. However the SLC is pricey for large spaces, so for the master I thought to try planipatch (about half the cost) and only spot treat the low spots and maybe skim coat the rest. From what I understand of SLC's its best to pour the whole area rather than just fix individual low spots.

So I'm curious to know how planipatch and novoplan differ? Mapei's website doesn't really give any specifics, only that novoplan is an SLC. Planipatch is geared more toward skim coating I believe, but can also fill voids too? Does my plan of using planipatch only to fill the low spots sound like a good way to go?

Thanks in advance for the help!
Matt

I have used a self-leveling concrete to fill in low areas. The self-leveling mixes will flatten out when just a patch is done, but the edges will not flatten out without help because there is so much surface tension. This leaves a thick edge that I smooth out with an edger using coarse sandpaper the next day when the patch has not cured completely. To level whole floor it would take lots of mix, when I only want to fill the low spots and have a flat floor.
On a larger fill I use little thickness gauges made with materials on hand. I find that slate bits can make good thickness gauges cause they fracture to different thicknesses and are going to lay flat since the chips are like pancakes.

As we only sell engineered and most of our installs are glue down, I can tell you I go through skids of Novaplan every month. Its fantastic stuff provided you skim coat or flood the areas. We use planipatch as well, but far less, as it's designed to be troweled and screeded as necessary and takes more finesse to work properly. Its not self levelling either, so its good for filling deep lows or working up one side of an uneven threshold or other tricky areas that require a lot of material - trenches dug for conduits etc.

SLC is a bulk product though. 30 bags per 1000 sqft for the novaplan and thats being conservative. So it depends on how much you need to flatten out. Remember that the goal for engineered is 1/8th over 8ft FLAT, not level. Use a long straight edge to check your lows - if you need more than 1/4'' of material to make it flat, you can try planipatch to fill the hole, then skim coat on top to flatten it off. If you're in a real hurry, use QuickPatch instead of Planipatch.

Hope this helps!