Most microcement systems finish at 2 to 3 millimetres: primer or base preparation, two mesh-reinforced base coats, two finish coats and sealer. Cemher's Microdur Plus data sheet allows 0.3 to 5.5 millimetres. That thinness lets it go over existing floors and tiles without demolition, raised levels or meaningful added weight.
How thick is microcement really?
The working answer is 2 to 3 millimetres for the finished system. Cemher's data sheets put ranges around that figure: Microdur Plus is approved from 0.3 to 5.5 millimetres, and the Microrock base coat goes on at 2 to 3 millimetres in two layers of 1 to 2 millimetres each.
Those numbers are worth taking seriously because they are conditions of performance, not stylistic choices. The tested hardness, adhesion and abrasion figures on the data sheets belong to a system built within its stated range, coat by coat.
For comparison, a tiled floor with its adhesive bed is measured in tens of millimetres, and a screed in tens more. Microcement is a different order of intervention, which is precisely the point. The material itself is introduced in what is microcement.
What sits inside those millimetres
The build-up is layered even though the total is thin. First the substrate work: cleaning, consolidation where needed, damp barriers where the survey demands them. Then base coats, with an alkali-resistant fibreglass mesh embedded in the first — the reinforcement that lets a coat this thin behave.
Each coat is sanded before the next. Finish coats follow in the selected grain and colour, finer than the base, and they are what the eye and hand actually meet. The colour is pigmented through these coats rather than painted on top.
Sealing closes the system: 24 to 48 hours after hardening, below five percent moisture, with a sealer such as Maxipur in matt, satin or gloss. Every one of these steps appears on the manufacturer's data sheet; skipping one is how thin systems earn bad reputations.
Why thinness matters: weight and level
At 2 to 3 millimetres the coating adds negligible dead load, which is why it runs onto walls, ceilings, stairs and joinery as readily as floors. No structural conversation is triggered by specifying it, which cannot be said of stone or new screeds.
Levels are the quieter win. A microcement floor raises the finished level by a few millimetres, so doors still swing, thresholds still align and sanitaryware stays where it is. In refurbishment that regularly decides the whole scheme.
It is also why demolition often disappears from the programme. Old ceramic tile is a listed substrate for Microdur Plus, so a dated tiled floor or bathroom wall can be resurfaced rather than ripped out — covered in microcement over tiles.
Thickness is not strength
It is tempting to assume a thicker coat is a stronger one, and the data sheets say otherwise. The hardness of a microcement floor comes from the material — compressive class C50 for Microdur Plus, C80 for Microrock, surface hardness over 200 N/mm² — and from the mesh-reinforced build, not from added millimetres.
The loads themselves are carried by the substrate, which is why Cemher specifies a minimum 25 N/mm² compressive substrate under Microrock rather than a thicker coating over a weak one. A thin system on a sound slab outperforms a thick one on a poor slab every time.
Applied too thick, cement-based coats work against themselves — shrinkage stresses rise with section. Staying inside the stated range is part of how cracking is avoided, and the rest of that story is in does microcement crack.
What thickness does not determine: waterproofing
Waterproofing is a property of the system, not of the millimetres. Cemher describes Microdur Plus as waterproof in mass — the coat itself, at any thickness in its range, resists water — and the sealer closes the surface. Adding thickness adds no watertightness.
The proof is in the range itself: Micropool, the immersion-rated pool system, is not a thicker Microdur Plus. It is a different product, carrying water-penetration results at 5 bar and 28-day immersion testing that the general-purpose system does not claim. Pool tanks are specified from Micropool, never from extra coats.
So the honest sentence for a specification meeting is this: thickness decides levels, weight and buildability; the system and its sealing decide water. The full water question is treated in is microcement waterproof and microcement bathrooms.
When the wall or floor needs more than 3 millimetres
Microcement is a finish, not a levelling layer. If a floor is out of plane or a wall is out of true, the correction happens in the substrate before the system starts — by grinding, screeding or render — because a few millimetres of coating faithfully follows whatever is beneath it.
Cemher's range acknowledges this on the lime side: Microtadelakt Thick Base exists at 5 to 15 millimetres precisely to bring a poor background into tolerance before finish coats. The thin finish is never asked to do the levelling.
The practical rule for specifiers: survey first, correct the background, then let the microcement be exactly as thin as it is designed to be. The same rule underpins microcement floors and microcement walls and ceilings.
Specifying microcement in Saudi Arabia
Conmarble supplies and installs the Cemher systems across Saudi Arabia, with applicators on our own payroll — and a build-up measured in single millimetres is exactly the kind of work where the applicator is the specification. Data sheets and clauses sit on microcement.
If a retrofit is on the table, the useful first step is a substrate survey and a level check; the second is a sample panel in the real space, agreed before the finishes schedule is locked.
Send drawings, build-ups and the finishes schedule through the enquire page, or message the Riyadh office on WhatsApp at +966 56 808 8273. Wellness, in Every Surface.