As I am planning to finish my basement, I've decided that an engineered wood floor is what I'd like. I know the concrete floor has to be "pretty level/flat" in order to put a wood floor over top, although I've read vastly different definitions of what that means. Furthermore, the folks at Lowe's and Home Depot are of little help, as they spin completely different stories. I've tried the bowling ball test, and there are a couple spots where it definitely takes off in one direction for a few feet, but mostly it just rolls a few inches here or there. The entire basement is sloped slightly toward the sump pump in the corner, which is fine (I don't really care about levelness as much as flatness), but I still don't know how flat I really need it. The floor definitely isn't wavy by just looking at it, and passing a string and measuring depths shows that it's maybe 6-8 mm deeper in the middle than near the walls (over 30 ft), but is that enough to warrant leveling it with self-leveling concrete mix? I plan to use the Delta-FL underlayment, which I've heard can counteract a small degree of unevenness, but what is the impact if I install the Delta-FL over my concrete floor as-is (even with it being 6-8 mm deeper over the course of 30 ft), then install a floating engineered hardwood floor above that? If it's too out-of-level, will the floor buckle or what? Thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this mysterious question to me.
- posted
16 years ago