I remember sueb20 did a wonderful basement reno but she's out of town and probably not checking in here this week. If you don't get other responses, you should try her in about a week or so.

OK, you've had an experience with water. Hopefully the cause had been permanently repaired.

Personally, I do not recommend sheet goods, or wall-to-wall carpeting for that matter, in a below-grade situation. The space will always be cooler and damp. In time, moisture trapped below the sheet goods will discolor the surface.

We put vinyl tiles on our basement floor. Though they were self-adhesive, we installed them using mastic in order to float the leveling imperfections and give a solid adhesion. Haven't needed to replace any but we could.

I've linked our basement so you can see the flooring. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Here is a link that might be useful: Basement

There is always VCT, and you can mix a bunch of colors to get a fun look. That will end up under $1 a foot, but the floor prep is more critical with it than sheet vinyl. The tile will telegraph any bumps or depressions, so it needs to be flat (all flooring will require this) and it also needs to be dry for the adhesive to stick properly. If you have moisture issues, be sure that the trench drain and sump or whatever you installed to handle those issues is effective before you start the project. If it's not, you don't want to put any flooring on top of that because you'll get mold underneath it.

{{!gwi}}

There are a lot of grey or black colors in Armstrong VCT for you to make up your own pattern or to adapt one of the above to your floor. (Although I would suggest that most basements are dark and colorless enough already and could benefit from a nice shot of color.)

The VCT looks fabulous! Another possibility may be cork flooring. It naturally insulates and provides warmth, however, I'm not sure that the price point would suit your needs.

hhireno, I googled sue's reno and that is just the look I want. Hopefully, I can get more info when she returns. Unfortunately, carpet like she has won't work for our floors.

fnm, while we don't have real water issues (yet) it is a basement and it does get damp. The wall where the drywall got damp and gave way had a small issue but we think the spray foam and redirecting downpipes have solved it. The biggest issue with carpet is that it holds the smell of damp and in our 100 year old house musty smells are a big problem. I love your floor and think that may work best for us too. Did you do it yourself? What kind of subfloor did you have? I'm hoping to avoid putting in a new subfloor as that would raise all sorts of new issues (gotta love old houses).

Love the VCT. The floor now is old 9x9 tiles. It is not in bad shape but there are a few spots that have holes or dings. There is also a spot where it looks like they cut out a square of subfloor to get access under and then just set it back in place. Not sure this can be fixed without a whole new subfloor. I don't think we can just lay a new subfloor on top since the water pipes run across a section of the floor and there is no clearance under them to lay more plywood.

We love cork and have it in our kitchen, but here it is very pricey and we'd definitely need a new subfloor for cork.

In my opinion, your best bet is cheap ceramic tile with area rugs you can throw away if necessary. No matter how well you have repaired your leak, sump pumps fail, sewer drains back up, washer hoses fail, hot water heaters fail, they are ALWAYS damp, etc. Even metropolitan sewerage districts sometimes back into people's basements...just ask us Milwaukeeans!

I installed ceramic in our basement years ago. Am I ever glad. All we needed for cleanup was a hose and squeegees to push the muck back into the floor drain and plastic rugs to throw out the area rugs in. My neighbors, well, their tasks were much more disgusting and difficult, not to mention costly.

I installed our ceramic myself, and ahem, it is beautiful! It wasn't hard, just long, and hard on my knees. We have loved it ever since. And you can buy bound carpet remnants for next to nothing and change them on a whim if you like.

You should really check those old tiles for asbestos! Like NOW!

Most of those old 9x9 tiles are asbestos based, and if that is the case, you have a complete game changer as how you can approach the problem safely. You should also check the insulation on the heating ducts at the same time because if the house is old enough to have the old tile, it's old enough to have used asbestos based insulation on the ductwork too.

Yikes! Greendesigns is right. We had our hardwood floors installed on top of the old linoleum (or whatever it was) because the installers could not risk removal without special measures.

Don't put yourselves in harm's way with asbestos! It is bad stuff! I don 't know how you check it...my installers made assumptions based on age and design. Greendesigns?

Yes, the tiles are asbestos (kinda like living with a loaded gun). And, lucky us, we have the same ones on our 3rd floor. We didn't have them tested like we did with the insulation, but everything we read says if they are 9x9 from that time period, they are asbestos. This is why a subfloor would have to go over top. We don't want to pull up the old floor and risk putting asbestos dust into the air.

Shermann I love the idea of ceramic, but I don't think hte subfloor would hold them. I could look into it. In the 13 years we've been here we haven't had water ( knocking on wood). Just this little dampness that wrecked the drywall (and it was just on one wall).

We are in the middle of having our basement finished. Just today the contractor painted the concrete floor with Dry Lock to provide a protective seal in case of any water. We'll be using ceramic tile in part and carpet in the rest of the area -- but wanted to mention the Dry Lock process.

Best of luck!

daisychain01

Yes, drainage around the foundation is critical.

You should plan for a GOOD dehumidifier in any basement, especially one known to be damp. A separate electrical circuit and the unit placed so a hose can lead directly into a drain. Ideally the humidity will be kept at 40% maximum. The musty smell is mold and it grows in humid conditions.

Yes, we did the floor (and the whole basement) DIY. Actually a friend helped with the floor in gratitude for hospitality and the two of us completed it in a weekend. It's really pretty easy, just important to get started square. Ours is on the diagonal because I knew the basement was slightly out-of-square and this layout enables hiding the imperfections better. It's been down 5 years without any problems. Hope this helps.

Thanks hopmom. I'm going to google Dry Lock and see if it would be useful in our case.

fnm, why the separate electrical circuit and what exactly does that mean? We've just had the basement mostly rewired, but the electrician is coming back in about a month so we could get him to do some changes. I hope it wouldn't be major tho as we're already paying this guy the equivalent of our kids college fund. We have a GFI outlet in the bathroom down there, could we just plug it into there?

Did you happen to do the stairs as well? I started to do ours in peel and stick tiles and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

daisychain01

Talk with your electrician about the allowed load that various existing circuts are prepared to handle. Meanwhile, do some shopping for a dehumidifier and find out what the wattage(or amperage) consumption of one you like requires. Dehumidifiers are sort of like mini refrigerators (and are rated to handle a maximum area) and I suspect might potentially overload a bathroom circuit. Since you have an electrician involved already, let him guide you correctly. The reason his rates are so high is because he is liable for correctly wiring according to planned usage.

We carpeted our stairs. I suspect trimming individual tiles for steps would be time consuming and the treads probably aren't smooth and level so adhesion is not good. Probably sheet goods would be a better choice for stair treads with a cap (metal or vinyl) over the exposed end.

Thank you so much (again), fnm.

And thanks everyone. This is exactly the sort of info I wanted before I head to the stores. Love this forum.