I had a contractor come in and raise my sunken livingroom to the same level as the rest of the house but the new floor was not as flat as I would have liked and was about 1/2" lower as well. Since I had all sorts of problems with this contractor even showing up I just wanted to wash my hands of him and fix it myself but seem to have made the problem worse.

First, I used 6 bags of self leveling compound from Home Depot called Henry 555. The last bag did not mix properly and when I dumped it out on the floor mostly water spread out and the mix stayed on the bottom. I added the water back in and mixed it again and when I threw it out the same thing happened. So now I have at least half a bag stuck to the bottom and quite a bit more water than I needed sitting on top of the floor. It took three days for all of the water to dry up even though the product says 2-4 hours. Where water sat, the floor was not solid and cracked when we walked on it. I went around and broke up all the loose areas which was limited to one half of the room.

Since this product was $38 a bag and I would need another 4 or so to fix the areas I looked to see what Lowes had to offer. For the same price as 4 bags from Home Depot I could get 6 bags of a "similiar product" at Lowes. When I applied it I realized it was quite a bit thicker and dried faster. Because it was thicker it covered most of the area but now sticks up that the area that did not get touched this last time and it did not lay nearly as flat. Additionally there are now more peaks, valleys and ridges than when I started.

If I had it to do over again I would stick with the Home Depot product and try to mix it up in larger batches (I can only mix one bag at a time right now). But I can't go back so what should I do? I am currently going around with a pry bar and a mallet knocking off some of the peaks and ridges but it is very slow going. This product is too hard for a rack or hoe to scrap down either. Can anyone suggest a sure-fire fix for this?