25 year old house, concrete slab, tell me what floor to get, plea

15 years ago

That should be please.

The foundation wasn't poured very level in places. We already had to level places when we put down tile in the kitchen & laundry room 13 years ago. I recently took the carpet out of the formal living room & hall and really want something done. We have been put off by our remodeling contractor until the first of the year. I know that is only 4Â½ months, but I just don't think I can live with a concrete slab with holes along the baseboard (from taking up the tackstrip), and paint spray & drips for that long.

I thought about putting down tile simply because the room connects to the kitchen and we have a lot of tile leftover (we bought enough to do a future addition, but haven't done it yet. My dh doesn't want tile because he thinks it will hurt our resale. We are in the DFW area and plan on moving in about 2 years.

I don't like the sound of laminate. It sounds like walking on the old type linoleum I grew up with. I like the look of hardwood and saw some Bruce at Home Depot that is tongue & groove and looks like solid wood to me, but it says nailed installation only so I guess that's out.

We live in a high humidity area and after reading here, I am a bit concerned about any hardwood glued to the slab, even if we can get it level. Although in a previous house we had a hardwood floor that had been glued to the slab & it was 20 years old when we bought the house and still looked great.

The formal living room has an outside door to a patio which at this time is our main entrance since it is next to the driveway. At some time, we want to put an addition on that patio, and taking out a wall would open a gap in the flooring.

If this were your situation and you knew you weren't going to live here forever, and had resale in mind, what would you do?

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Comments (9)

glennsfc
15 years ago
Quite frankly, nothing...short of new carpeting to cover up the unlevel sins.
User
15 years ago
If I were you and loved the look of hardwood (which I do) and didn't love laminate, (which I don't), I would contract a company to come in and level the slab with self-leveling concrete/cement. I'm not sure what it's called.

Then I'd test the slab for water by taping a few large squares of clear plastic in various parts of the room/s and see if water condenses under the plastic after a few days. If it does, call a water damage company to come in and assess the amount of moisure in the slab. They dry it with those special machines they have. If no moisture is noted, research engineered hardwood and have it glued down.

If you don't want to deal with the aggravation, order carpeting and be done with it. I'm not an expert, but that's where I'd start if I were you.
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TxMarti
Original Author
15 years ago
dian, we've done the tape the plastic to the floor thing and didn't find any moisture. Dh & I even talked about painting the slab for a short term cheap solution, but agree that it would look pretty awful.

We went to Home Depot & found some vinyl flooring strips called Traffic Master and were on the verge of ordering it when we thought we'd better come home & do some remeasuring first. I got online & found about as many happy people as unhappy, and really, about half the unhappy folks sounded like they hadn't put it down according to directions. Still, even though it would be a short term solution for us, I don't want to look at curling edges for 6-8 months either so we've backed off that for now.

Thought we'd visit a Floor & Decor tomorrow & see what other options we have. If the TrafficMaster worked, it would be ideal. It would only cost about $600, and would be able to clean it during construction, and if for some reason we actually loved it, we could patch it in to the new addition & just leave it here.
mjsee
15 years ago
Oh, put the allure traffic master down. Worst case scenario, you are our $600 and your time. I put it in my laundry room. Small space, with heavy appliances on it...but it's been down a year and looks fine.
Distance shot:

Up close and personal (before we replaced the toe molding):

If you do decide to go that route...invest in some good flooring knee pads. You will thank me later.

melanie
TxMarti
Original Author
15 years ago
I remember you posting that on another thread about TrafficMaster. Your laundry room looks great. Is the toe board the baseboard? I dread taking that off too. I don't really care if the flooring has a recurring crease like some have reported, and don't think the fading from sunlight will be a problem, but I am worried about doing all the work and then the edges separating & curling. But it seems to me that most of the people who reported those problems either didn't use the 100 lb roller or had temperature extremes that I don't have.
mjsee
15 years ago
Well, we replaced both the baseboards AND the shoe/toe molding. (There'd been a leak at one point, and the baseboards had rotted.) Shoe molding alone isn't that big of a deal...a little plastic miter box will handle the angle cuts.

I didn't use the 100 lb roller...just a rolling pin with my weight on it...and it's all fine. But, as I said, little space, big heavy appliances. We DID tack the edges down with double-stick carpet tape.

melanie
jacobfloors
15 years ago
If you look for something in between chip laminate to real wood, go with bamboo or engineered wood, you can find it from $1.99 and upÂ.you can glue it down with bostik BEST is $135 for 200 sq/ft , thatÂs perfect to area that have humidity, and if you seal the floor you are more the protected, you can find any color any price,
And it will increase the value of the house so look at this like investment.

If the concrete is really bad and in big area just use cork or underlayment to bevel it.
TxMarti
Original Author
15 years ago
jacobfloors, where do you get flooring $135 for 200 sq/ft and what kind is it?
liz_in_dallas
15 years ago
I put engineered hardwood in most of my condo - stable like laminate, but real wood, and durable. But you need a really level surface to glue it to.

In the bedrooms and hall, I have stained concete with flokati rugs. The concrete looks like a huge slab of slate, and isn't cold (well, a little cooler than hardwood cool)

I think its gorgeous.