Why does our new apartment floor feel hollow underfoot?

The slab was not level and the planks are bridging a hollow. SPC is rigid but not structural: over a dip it flexes, feels hollow, and eventually the click joints fail. A levelling screed before laying is the fix, and it is what a cheap quote leaves out.

Broadloom or carpet tile for an office?

Tile, almost always. Floor boxes and cable routes need to stay accessible, spills can be swapped out one tile at a time, and an irregular converted room does not need a cutting plan. Broadloom looks warmer and is a liability in a working office.

Plumber in Kilimani, Nairobi

We cover Kilimani including Yaya, Dennis Pritt, Wood Avenue, Rose Avenue, Chaka Road, Ring Road Kilimani, Kirichwa, Milimani, State House. Off Argwings Kodhek Road, Ngong Road and Denis Pritt Road. Deliveries go via basement car parks with a height restriction we check first.

What is different about plumbing in Kilimani

Kilimani tower slabs on Dennis Pritt Road are frequently out by more than 3mm over 2 metres, so SPC needs a levelling screed before the first plank goes down.
Converted offices around Argwings Kodhek Road want carpet tile rather than broadloom, because floor boxes and cable routes have to stay accessible.
High-traffic Kilimani apartment corridors wear a thin SPC wear layer through within two years, so the specification matters more there than the pattern does.

Flooring in Kilimani

Kilimani splits neatly into two jobs: apartments in the newer towers, and converted houses now working as offices. They need different finishes for reasons that have nothing to do with taste.

Level the slab first

Tower slabs here are routinely out by more than 3mm over 2 metres, which is the point at which SPC starts to bridge hollows. The symptom is a floor that feels hollow and drums underfoot, and eventually click joints that fail along the dip.

A self-levelling screed before laying resolves it permanently. It costs real money and it is the line most often missing from a cheap quotation: which is why the cheap quotation looks cheap.

We check levels with a straightedge before quoting rather than after laying.

Carpet tile in converted offices

An office floor has to stay accessible. Floor boxes get moved, cables get rerouted, someone spills coffee on one square metre.

Carpet tile handles all three. Broadloom handles none of them, and in a converted house with an irregular plan it also needs a complicated cutting layout. For a Kilimani office fit-out we would specify tile every time.

Wear layer, not pattern

In an apartment corridor or a busy office the wear layer thickness decides how the floor looks in two years. A thin one shows traffic paths, and no cleaning brings them back.

We quote the wear layer explicitly. If a competing quotation does not state it, that is worth asking about before comparing prices.

What we are usually called out for in Kilimani

Vinyl and SPC installation SPC and vinyl plank laid over a properly levelled subfloor: quick, waterproof and genuinely good value. Carpet fitting Broadloom, carpet tiles and stair fitting, laid over a subfloor that has been prepared rather than swept. Floor and wall tiling Ceramic, porcelain and large-format tiling laid flat, with the labour and material costs shown separately. Epoxy floor installation Epoxy laid on a slab that has been tested and prepared, the step that decides whether it lasts.

Landmarks we work around here: Yaya Centre, Kilimani Primary, Adams Arcade, Dennis Pritt Road. See every floor type priced.