Any chance there are other factors at work that caused the flooding? How are your gutters, downspouts, drainage away from the house, are foundation drains clear, etc.

Any idea where the water actually came in? Up through cracks in the floor, through the walls, floor drains...?

Toxcrusadr, that's a good question. Our gutters, downspouts etc are fine, we just relocated & fixed all of that recently, even before all of this happened, so hopfully that wasn't what caused the damage. As far as cracks in the floors, walls etc...honestly I can't say 100% because our house is over 20 yrs old, but, I'm a stickler for maintaining my house & did do as much as I could to see if that was the case also & as far as I saw, it wasn't, so that leaves the sump pump as the reason most likely. Normally we have no problems, it just that we literally got dumped on with a ton of rain that came in so fast, there were tornadoes & thunder & lightening...it was like a hollywood movie around here for a while lol. This only happened one other time, under the same circumstances, to our basement in over 25 yrs of living here, so, the delimma of what to put down for the flooring is what we're not sure about now. Thanks for the imput.

Sherwoodva, we don't, we live in Ohio, so yes, tile would get cold unfortunately, that's why we were going to do hardwood flooring, it's warmer, but, if it floods again, that'll be it. Unlike carpet or hardwood, tile would not get damaged. Someone suggested vinyl flooring, but, I don't know that my Wife wants that & don't know if it would hold up either. The upside was that this was a fluke, we've been in this house 20+ yrs & this is only happened twice. The downside...that it's happened, so, it's a issue that we need to take into consideration, because it has happened once before. My guess is because the sump pump didn't need to run for so long, something in it got stuck & it didn't run at all when we got the flooding.

Wood look ceramic tile and then room size rug. Which if it gets wet can be easily removed and cleaned.

Check out the new vinyl plank flooring. It's basically self install like pergo but 100% vinyl, waterproof and lifetime residential warranty. This might not be quite as cold as tile, then do area rugs as needed. It's incredibly reall looking too.

That really sucks and I know from my parents experience with a busted pipe flooding their basement that it is a long process. They had carpet too, but paid extra to replace it with DuraCeramic. If they had it to do over again they would have installed porcelain tile due to continued issues with the grout. Yes, tile is cold on the feet, but if you're on concrete, you'll never be able to put down wood anyways. Tile will hold up way better. My husband and I are in the process of transforming the majority of our basement to a master suite and will be using tile, BUT putting down area rugs for comfort.

Why did the Insurance company say you are SOL? Lawyering up might work.

I guess with living in Ohio, being that it's the midwest, we have more cold than hot weather, so that sucks as far as flooring & pools :)

sabbath7, we just got the insurance adjuster to come out the other day to assess the damage, it took almost a week because they're so backed up. We had to leave a piece of the ruined carpet in our bedroom that long so he would have evidence of anything happening, which was awful, but he did agree with us & is going to try to work with the insurance company to get us as much credit for new flooring as possible. Thing is, it'll take another week or two for the insurance co. to get back to us about how much, but at least we were able to rip that &^% carpet up & ge tit out of our bedroom. So now it's a waiting game.

I would either go tile and heated floor or tile with big area rug.

Sorry you're dealing with a mess!

Thanks for the support elohbee. :) The heated floor idea would be a great choice except for the size of area that it would have to cover, our bedroom is a pretty good size room & runs into our master bath, so we'd most likely have to do the entire area for it to look right.

I like the idea of either vinyl or tile wood-look with a rug for warmth. Some products allow or even require a cushion layer of foam underneath, which would provide a teensy bit of insulation.

I lived with my parents briefly after college in a basement room that had vinyl flooring. And a couple large area rugs. I don't think tile over concrete would be any more chilly than vinyl, and with the area rug or rugs you'll be fine. In my case, the rugs did not extend to the closet door, nor down the hallway to the bath, and this was seldom too cold. This was Connecticut.

I'd go ahead and do the wood look tile with area rugs.

Wood look tile looks really nice. I had a leak that ended up with mold from my downstairs bathroom through the kitchen and hallway. It was all hardwood. Pulled it out, put down the tile. These townhomes have a lot of issues with water leaks and tile makes more sense. I love how it looks and feels.

We had a sump pump in our last home and the washer and dryer were across the basement from it. Would test it every time I washed sheets, weekly. It did have to be replaced once, but had to replace the pump up on the laundry tub several times, as that would go out and water would over flow the laundry tub!

Best of luck to you.

Thanks everyone for the advice & support, I think we've decided to go with vinyl flooring, not the more moderate stuff, this is $8 a sq ft, but has the underlayment built in, so given that, we thought it was the best choice & it looks like hardwood, maybe we got lucky, but believe it or not, my Wife was deadset on any vinyl or laminate, she really wanted hardwood before & she's the one that eneded up going with this flooring for our bedroom lol, go figure, but, if she's happy, I'm happy *wink wink* Thanks again for everything.