what kind of flooring to use in the basement?

We are finishing our basement and adding two bedrooms and a bathroom. The basement right now is completely unfinished, with a concrete floor and walls. I am looking for advice on finishing the basement floor. What kind of flooring is best for a basement, especially in the bathroom? I would also appreciate your advice on whether to use a subfloor, and how to keep the moisture from degrading the floor and walls. Thank you!

Reply to
agalitsky
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All basement floors eventually get wet. Water will come from the outside, or from a broken pipe, but it WILL come one day. IMO the only floors that make sense in a basement are:

1) Bare or stained concrete 2) Tile 3) Vinyl 4) Cork 5) Removable carpet tiles (2'x2', ask at Home Depot).

The first three have drawbacks in terms of comfort and/or durability. Personally I like cork.

Reply to
Tim Killian

We have had water come in on a couple occasions in our finished basement (both times from the chimney filling up). This has been limited to a large puddle that had spread form the unfinished portion of basement to the finished part. We've never had anything like standing water or anything. I considered tile or cork but both were pretty expensive. What we did was use commercial carpet (like what you'd see in an office building). We also went with a glue down option instead of tacking over padding. If you go any carpet route I'd STRONGLY reccommend no padding. Once the padding gets wet you have to basically tear out all the carpet to replace the wet padding. They also make indoor/outdoor carpet that can take water that looks very similar to berber, we almost went that route but the wife thought it looked a little too plasticy (I didn't think so). The last storm filled our chimney and we got some water, an area of the carpet got wet, after wet drying it and running the dehumidifier after a few hours it was as if nothing ever happened. A week later and it's fine, no smell, no discoloration. Contrary to the fact we have gotten water the basement is quite dry. In that I mean, we have no water coming up from floor, and moisture tests show no moisture is seeping up.

Tim Killian wrote:

Reply to
grodenhiATgmailDOTcom

As for the installed cost of a floor, like anything else it's: good, fast, cheap, pick any two.

The commercial 2' x 2' carpet tiles I mentioned have a built-in, non-absorbent pad and use a "post-it note" type of adhesive that's removable. If they get wet, they can be pulled up easily to dry out. They are not cheap, but they allow a reasonably good carpet in areas that get wet from time to time.

grodenhiATgmailDOTcom wrote:

Reply to
Tim Killian

We have normal carpeting in ours but ours is perfectly dry and we were here when it was built to make sure it would stay that way. Ceramic tile in the bathroom but if your concrete is still new and the tile is attached directly to it, the concrete may crack and take the tile with it if not properly installed.

Reply to
Art

Have you planned the necessary emergency egress from the bedrooms?

Wayne

Reply to
Wayne Whitney

For the bathroom, you want easy to clean. First choice would be ceramic tiles. Easy to clean, they look the best, IMO. Next to that I'd go with vinyl sheet goods.

For bedrooms, I'd consider the indoor outdoor carpet if you want warm under the feet. Otherwise, I'd go with engineered wood and maybe throw rugs by the bed. If you go with the engineered wood (see

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) you will need a barrier that the dealer will also have.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Either poured epoxy covered with synthetic (nylon/polyester) carpet, or foam insulation between 3/4" sleepers, all covered in plastic, and then plywood.

Reply to
Goedjn

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