Replacing Basement Flooring

 

MIKE: Hello and thank you for your show. I enjoy it.

 

LESLIE: Thanks.

 

MIKE: Have a small house – story-and-a-half – that has a walkout basement as the bottom floor.

 

TOM: OK.

 

MIKE: And it has a smooth, finished, concrete floor in it that used to have carpet on it.

 

TOM: Alright.

 

MIKE: The carpet was taken up and now we have the carpet glue on the floor. And I was thinking about refinishing the floor with one of the epoxy coatings.

 

TOM: OK.

 

MIKE: So my question is how do I get the surface smooth enough to paint?

 

TOM: Very difficult to remove those old adhesives.

 

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) Yeah, that’s going to be tough.

 

TOM: Have you thought about using a different type of floor product? Have you thought about perhaps using a laminate floor?

 

MIKE: (overlapping voices) I have, yes. Yep.

 

TOM: (overlapping voices) Is this a space that you’d really like to finish? Because that would be my choice.

 

LESLIE: Well, and that would be the easiest because then you’re not dealing with having to remove the sort of uneven surfaces, the remnants of the adhesive. Now you’ve got this sort of floating floor that goes over everything with that foamy underlayment that you’re going to put underneath your laminate. It sort of smoothes out all those little bumps that you’ll see in there and then that floor will sit right on top of that. If you …

 

MIKE: Now, a lot of that engineered product is just kind of a snap in place; it’s a floating type floor? Is that right?

 

LESLIE: Absolutely.

 

TOM: It is. It’s not adhered down and I can tell you it’s very forgiving when it comes to uneven floors. I have laminate floor in my kitchen of my 1886 house and I can tell you that that floor is about as roly-poly as it gets and I’m sure I far exceed the tolerance that’s specified by the laminate floor manufacturer for how far out of whack a floor can be.

 

MIKE: Right.

 

TOM: But this laminate floor has really gone down great. It’s been down now for a decade and it really has stayed together nicely. So yes, I think that it’s very forgiving when it comes to uneven floor surfaces and if you have some glue buildup, get off as much as you can but between the fact that it’s floating and it goes over an underlayment, I think you’re going to be in good shape and be very happy with the result.

 

MIKE: OK. Well, very good. I’m into easy; whatever that might be. (all chuckle)

 

LESLIE: You know what? It’s going to be easy, it’s going to look great and it’s going to turn that basement into a really warm, usable space.

 

MIKE: Alright. Thank you so much.

 

TOM: You’re welcome, Mike. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.