Concrete Screeds & Floats

Between the pour and the power trowel there is a stretch of hand work that decides whether a floor is flat. The concrete is struck off to level, floated to close the surface, checked for high and low spots, and cut down where it is proud. The tools for this are simple — a screed, a bull float, a bump cutter, a check rod — but the difference between a good set and a poor one shows up on every slab.

Topall Impex supplies hand screeds and floats with magnesium or aluminium-alloy blades on 1800 mm stainless steel handle sections, a petrol screed vibrator, the Beton Trowel range of bull floats, screeds and spreaders, and, for road and pavement contractors who have outgrown hand screeding, the FVP219 roller screed paver made in India by Topall Impex.

The range

• FBF33 bull float — 1200 × 200 mm magnesium blade on three 1800 mm stainless steel handles; the first pass after screeding that closes the surface without sealing it.
• FBC33 bump cutter — a straight, stiff blade for cutting down high spots and filling low ones once the bleed water has gone.
• FCR33 check rod — the straightedge that finds the humps the bump cutter then takes out.
• CVS-25 screed vibrator — Honda GX35 powered; vibrates a straightedge so the strike-off compacts as it levels.
• Beton Trowel Vibra Tamp bull float, BTS35H Euroscreed, BT2WMS material spreader and high-frequency vibrator convertors — the European set for contractors working to a tight flatness specification.
• FVP219 roller screed paver — 3, 5 or 7 m width, 219 mm roller, 3 to 7 needle vibrators, paving up to 300 mm thick. The powered option for roads, yards and canal linings.

Which one

Every floor needs a bull float, a bump cutter and a check rod; buy those as a set. Add the CVS-25 when the slabs are thicker than a hand straightedge will compact. Move to the FVP219 when the work is roads or large pavements and a screeding gang can no longer keep pace with the mixers. The Beton Trowel tools come in when a client specifies a floor flatness that hand floating alone will not consistently hit.

What screeds and floats cost

Price on request, usually quoted the same working day. Hand tools are priced by blade material and length; the CVS-25 by its engine; the FVP219 by paving width, roller and number of vibrators. Handle sections and replacement blades are held in Delhi.

Screeds and floats or a laser levelling machine

A laser guided concrete levelling machine strikes the slab to grade automatically and suits large indoor floors. Hand screeds and the roller screed paver suit roads, smaller pours and sites the machine cannot get into. Most contractors run both: the levelling machine on the warehouse floor and the roller screed on the yard outside.

Power

The hand tools need none. The CVS-25 runs on a Honda GX35 petrol engine. The FVP219 is a powered machine; tell us whether the site has a supply and we will specify the right build.