[Shop-talk] Flooring for uneven basement?

[Douglas Braun]

I agonized over this exact same problem about 5 years ago when we
decided to redo our basement. We ended up haring some people to apply
a thin layer of cement in all the low spots.  We were not even trying
to get it perfectly flat, just acceptably flat.

A couple of years later, we noticed a couple of places where the
cement layer was heaving upwards, putting lumps in the cork flooring
we had placed over it.  Then a few weeks later, the dishwasher broke
and flooded the basement.  Of course, the cork flooring was ruined.
Once it was removed, we chiseled out the messed-up cement layer and
repaired it with more carefully-applied cement and self-leveling
cement.  The damage was bizarre:  you would expect a cement layer to
shrink and crack, but this stuff expanded and heaved upwards!

After fixing the cement, we put down a layer of OvrX insulated
subflooring (www.ovrx.com) and put carpet over it.  That was 2 or 3
years ago, and so far, all is well.  I recommend the Ovrx product.

To summarize:  Any possibly solution will be expensive and a pain in
the ass.  O lot of contractor will not want to mess with the job.

Good Luck,

Doug

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Jim Franklin <jamesf at groupwbench.org> wrote:
> I'm renovating a basement and need to put down a finish floor. The concrete
is
> 90 years old and very uneven. Other than 1000 gallons of self-levelling
goop,
> I'm at a loss as to how to accomplish this other than making a 2 sq ft grid
> and shimming each joint. 2 problems with this- I can't lose more than 3" of
> height, and the entire basement would need to be cleared to do this, and
> there's many cubic yards of stuff down there that has nowhere to go.
>
> thanks,
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