Posters who have finished basements in their homes...

[Laila619]

Hi! Can I ask you for some advice? What kind of flooring do you have in your finished basements? Porcelain/ceramic, vinyl, wood, laminate, carpet? Do you like the flooring you chose? And have you ever had any water damage or issues? DH and I are finishing our basement to make it a kids' play room/family room and we're trying to figure out what the best floor options are. I'd be interested in hearing about what you chose and why. Thanks so much everyone!

 

[lyra]

Can you be more specific in what you want to know? We have carpet, ceramic tile and laminate (floating) floors in our basement. It's a regular below ground, non-walkout basement which has a sump pump and 2 floor drains. It has never been wet and the house is over 10 years old. All these surfaces worked for us, with some minor issues, all caused by slightly uneven concrete. We had a few cracked tiles (12 x 12"), and the laminate floor is definitely not perfectly level. The carpet is fine as it doesn't need a perfect surface underneath and has very good under-padding. Hope that helps.

 

[asscherisme]

My house came with the basement finished with carpet. It was gross and old and when I bougth the house I ripped it out and put in new carpet. Made the space very cozy. I thought I was protected by having a new sump pump and back up sump pump for emergency so it would not flood.

But...I did not think about the possiblity of sewage backing up in my basement. And guess what....what a nightmare.

I have never been soooo grossed out. No storms or rain or anything, just bad luck and problems with the sewage pipes. City would take NO responsility. Thank goodness I have good insurnace and a good policy. Had to have a hazard team come in and clean. Lost carpet, furniture, drywall, everthing in that space. Just soooo gross. But the clean up hazard waste team did an amazing job. Their bill alone was in the thousands (paid for by insurance less deductable). Plus had to replace all that was down there. Again, thank goodness for insurance.

Irony...the sewage drain opposity end of basement from sump pump and had they been closer, new sump pumps would have been damaged as well.

Ended up having plumber snake sewage line with camera and found and dealt with blockage.

Moral of the story, whatever type of covering you have on floor does not matter if you have sewage of drain problems.

All is fine now, but I still cringe when I think of what happened.

I ended up replacing with carpet because I wanted my basement to have a cozy feel to it and in the cold winters, it definately is cozy with the carpet.

 

[LAJennifer]

Last year, right before the closing of our house there was a great big rain storm that flooded the sewer lines and the house had sewer back up in the basement. We bought the house anyway, but the owners had to get it cleaned up, replace the water heater, service the furnace and washer and dryer.

I made a vow that never would happen to me. This year, I called Rob West Plumbing and they came and disconnected all our basement drains from the main line. They now run into an ejector pit which raises up to a modified overhead sewer. The result is there would have to be 6 feet of water in my yard in order to get sewer backup.

Address that problem first, then one can comfortably move on to the decorating stuff. I think we are going to install Cork Flooring. I've also thought about Radiant Heat underneath the floors (definitely in the bathroom).

 

[stargurl78]

We're planning to re-finish our basement and are concerned about water damage as well. We had some leaky cracks but repaired them last December using this kit:
http://www.appliedtechnologies.com/home/d-i-y_urethane_kits/40_conctractor_kit.html

We haven't had a leak since (and we've had some pretty nasty storms).

Even so, we plan to put some kind of sub-floor down no matter what type of flooring we decide to go with, maybe something like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202268752/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=dricore&storeId=10051

If you're concerned, maybe you could put down something like that as a base? Also, my dad suggested using plastic sheeting behind the drywall so that if there are any leaks, they'll run down the plastic, under the sub-floor and into the drains.

 

[QueenB29]

We're in a townhouse and our basement flooded last September because of a house in foreclosure two doors down. The electricity was off so the sump pump wasn't working and there was so much water that it went through 4 other basements. We had carpeting at the time and it was a nightmare. I have a terrible mold allergy and in the short time it took to get workmen to rip it out, I felt incredibly sick being anywhere in the house, even upstairs with the windows open. I ended up with a massive sinus infection. As a result, we decided pretty quickly that there was NO way carpet was going back in that basement. We ended up having ceramic tile installed when we had the basement repaired. The tile itself was cheap, but the installation was $$$$$ (way above our insurance payout) and the floor was ice cold during the winter. Still, the peace of mind is SO worth it.

 

[Octavia]

DH and I just bought a house and the seller had installed new wall-to-wall carpeting in the finished areas of the basement before listing the house. It's really nice carpet, but if I was ever to re-do it, I'd use FLOR carpet tiles. I'm a big fan of FLOR for areas that might get dirty or damaged because you can take them up easily to clean them or replace sections. I think they do rubbery ones now, as well as carpet, and I might eventually put those in the unfinished utility/laundry room.

 

[soocool]

We put down a vapor barrier with a floating laminate floor. I also have scattered rugs throughout the basement and use a dehumifier. All my pipes/ducts are insulated so you do not see any condensate that could drip on the floors. We did paint the basement walls with Dry Loc paint( we did not finish the walls around the perimeter of the basement - we put up walls around the stairs which are in the middle of the basement).

I know they make a Dry Loc specifically for basement floors, but we did not use it. Our basement floor is floating and we have a french drain. Pipes can break and toilets can back up any where in the house. Make sure you drain away from your house outside to ensure no leakage from the outside - usually good landscaping will help this problem.

If you want carpet I would suggest putting down a subfloor first with a vapor barrier and definitely get a dehumidifier.