basement floor - paint to seal then tile later?

[still me]

Couple of questions:

I am going to (eventually) put tile and likely radiant heat in my basement. In the meantime, I am thinking of painting the floor to seal it (drylock?). I get lots of water thru my dehumidifiers down there and I suspect much of it comes through the floors. I'd like to cut down on that and get a usable surface on it until I can tile some time in the future. Basement is 20 years old.

Questions:

- is painting the floor a bad idea if I plan to tile? Does the thinset need to actually adhere to the floor later or can it just sit on top?

- is Drylock still the best thing or are there better paints or sealers now? Is the latex as good as the old oil version ?

[DanG]

Paint is absolutely the worst thing you could possibly do.

No VCT tile will ever stick to a high moisture floor. The one exception to that would be use Fritz adhesive - very expensive and may not be available to consumers

Water problems need to be solved on the outside. Underfloor water requires subloor drainage and sump pump work.

The radiant heat I know about is buried in or under the concrete floor, you must be talking about something else.

There is one product you may be interested in finding. It grows crystals in the voids in concrete in the presence of water. It is the one product I would spend any time on in an attempt to seal leaking concrete from the inside.

[still me]

OK... but what's VCT ? I'm looking at thinset and ceramic.

Sorry, ain't gonna happen. It's the middle of Summer, dirt under the floor is slightly damp, no visible water unless you dig a few feet below that. I still pull 10 gals a day out thru the dehumidifiers. We use sumps here but they only come into play when the water table rises in spring.

How about installing on top of the floor and putting a layer of concrete on top of which the tile floor sits? Perhaps not ideal, but I really don't want to jackhammer up the floor at this point.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Just Joshin]

Paint sounds like it will prevent a good mortar to cement contact. I would skip it.

tom @