Today, we had a professional measurement taken of the two rooms where we want to install new flooring, and it looks like we have a problem with our basement room that will prevent us from installing vinyl plank flooring. First of all, the basement floor isn't level, it slopes down in one corner, and the guy doing the measuring said it would be difficult to deal with that for the vinyl planks.

The second (and more serious?) problem is that this room has old laminate floor tiles (see below) and some of the tiles are cracked and loose in places, like you can slide your finger under the tile and if you applied a little bit of force, I think you could rip the tile off pretty easily. Because of that, he said it's not a good idea to install flooring over that, and the loose tiles would need to be taken off. The reason this is a problem is because, due to the age of the house, he said there's a concern about asbestos, and so we would have to hire a different contractor to get those tiles up. So that would add time and money to the re-flooring that I think we want to avoid.

The installation guy said his recommendation would be to go with carpet, because then the carpet can just be installed on top of the existing flooring and we wouldn't have to worry about taking the tiles up etc.

So, maybe we'll go with carpeting, but I'm worried about moisture/water issues. Here are the options, as I see them:

1) wall-to-wall carpet, regular indoor-style. Pros: it should look fine. Cons: if we get water in the basement, this would be a nightmare.

2) carpet tiles (again, indoor). Pros: apparently it would be easier to remove just part of the carpet if water gets in the basement. Cons: they use adhesive backing?

3) outdoor or indoor/outdoor carpet (wall-to-wall). Pros: moisture resistant? Cons: might not look so great?

I feel so bad, Mr. SK was really excited to have the flooring installed, he'd found one he really like and we thought it would look great with the wall color. I hope we can find a good solution (that isn't "leave it as is").

So, does anyone have any advice/suggestions/cautionary tales?

Here's what the room looks like now (Mr. SK is finished painting in here)

Yea, vinyl flooring on most basement floors is a challenge. The floors tend to be wonky.

Interlocking modular tiles might work.

https://modutile.com/interlock...asement-floor-tiles/

They also come with a carpet inset instead of a vinyl tile inset. I didn't see this product on their website but it is in their eBay store. We have a light taupe color in our screen room; not sure if that's still available.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/m.htm...arpet+tiles&_sacat=0

Since they have a rigid plastic base, they are not as sensitive as vinyl tile is if you have hills, valleys, or just plain slopes.

It's also a DIY job; we did our garage with RaceDeck solid tiles and the screen room with Modultile carpet tiles.

WTG, thanks for those links! The office isn't open on Sat/Sun, but I am definitely going to call them on Monday!

So, when you installed your floor, were there any other expenses with those interlocking tiles? It looks like you just lay them down, no underlayment etc. Is that right? I'm trying to figure out the price, because if I'm interpreting it correctly, we'd need 1 tile per square foot, right? And these are more per tile/square foot than a lot of other options we've looked at, but those other options all require adding underlayment and possibly installation etc.

Are the tiles easy to cut for edging etc.?

Oh, also do you think we could just lay those down on top of the existing floor?

SK, there are a bunch of companies that make these kinds of tiles. search for "interlocking floor tiles" or "modular floor tiles". Many will send you a sample tile or two at no cost.

There is no underlayment. It's a floating floor that is partially hollow underneath (the back is not solid), so it is not as quiet as a glued-down floor. You could ask them if an underlayment would work. We didn't do it in the screen room because it's a three-season room on top of a deck. Water can seep in a little at the edges of the room, and we needed a raised floor so that the moisture could evaporate back out easily.




Manufacturer's instructions: Start in a corner and lay a row of tiles till you get to the opposite wall where cut the last tile that goes next to the wall.. We used a good utility knife when we did the carpet tiles and a junky miter saw when we did the vinyl ones in the garage; they say you can use an electric saber saw. Then you go back to where you started and lay the next row. Repeat till you get to the last row, and then you have to make a cut for each tile. At least this is how the manufacturer says to do it and I think it kind of assumes the room is reasonably square.

As with any tile, you should ascertain how square the walls are and where you want your cut pieces to be. I guess you could do regular install pattern (not start in a corner) but I haven't thought that through. If you call Modutile you can ask them.

Modultile used to have a site with discounted tiles that might be factory overruns or maybe not all the same lot, so the color varied a bit but I'm not seeing it online anymore.

If you could live with less than perfect, you might save some bucks that way. I would at least try the "what's the best price" or "do you have any closeouts" approach and don't just assume you have to pay MSRP. Shipping is on top of the price. Our screen room is 15 x 12 (180 sq ft) and I think shipping was maybe $150? The list price on the tile at that time was $4, but we got the seconds for $2.50, I think.

Our friends in Madison took out the moldy-smelling carpet in the basement of the house they bought and installed a light maple-look vinyl tile from Modutile over the concrete floor. They've been very happy with it. They don't find it to be too noisy, and and because it's raised it feels a little warmer underfoot.

Hey, SK, they have a new product: an interlocking subfloor to be used with vinyl tile. Don't know how much it might add to the cost if you decided to go that route and a vinyl wood plank you bought elsewhere. But something to consider if you don't want to pull up the old floor.

Look at the bottom of the page in the link I posted earlier. And here: https://modutile.com/product/b...-interlocking-tiles/

BTW, do you know for certain if the old tile floor has asbestos?

quote:

Originally posted by well-tempered gardener: BTW, do you know for certain if the old tile floor has asbestos?

Measure the old tile. If it's 9"x9" it most certainly has asbestos. If it's 12"x12" it probably doesn't, but might. The other place to look for asbestos is in the mastic they used to hold the old tile down.

The test is pretty cheap - lots of different labs do it.

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
First of all, the basement floor isn't level, it slopes down in one corner, and the guy doing the measuring said it would be difficult to deal with that for the vinyl planks.

The biggest question is going to be how dry that basement stays. The old tile has been down for what appears to be a long time and you have what I think is a daylight basement on a slope, so I would think it would stay fairly dry. I don't know Jack about basements, though - YMMV.

As for leveling, leveling floors is a fairly straightforward process, generally involving pouring some "self-leveling floor underlayment" on the floor and watching it seek it's own level. There can be complications with baseboards and doorways but if your heart is set on plank I would not let the fact the floor is out of level be a complete deal killer. It's not a DIY project, but it's not generally all that expensive.

quote:

The installation guy said his recommendation would be to go with carpet, because then the carpet can just be installed on top of the existing flooring and we wouldn't have to worry about taking the tiles up etc.

I agree with him except you need to make sure that any tiles that are very loose are stuck back down before you install carpet over it. That said, maybe just test the floor, take it up (generally not too hard to do) if it tests negative for asbestos, have the floor leveled and put in what you want.

quote:

2) carpet tiles (again, indoor). Pros: apparently it would be easier to remove just part of the carpet if water gets in the basement. Cons: they use adhesive backing?

The good ones don't use adhesive backing. Instead, you spread a thin layer of this green stuff on the floor with a notched trowel and let it dry completely. Once you let it dry you can walk on it and it's not sticky at all. Very easy to DIY - I've done it myself.

The carpet squares have some sort of material on the back of them that sticks to the green stuff but not all that well - think "Post-it Notes". If you used a 100% synthetic carpet square you could pick them up and dry them if they got wet and then put them back down. You could also most likely vacuum up the water and spray Lysol on them (see below).

quote:

3) outdoor or indoor/outdoor carpet (wall-to-wall). Pros: moisture resistant? Cons: might not look so great?

Look at polypropylene (Olefin) carpets with a synthetic backing. They use it on boats as well as in offices and I have had some in my family room for some 20 years. Indestructible. Have it glued down - no pad.

If it gets wet (as it sometimes does in an office where the roof leaks) you can vacuum it with a wet/dry vac or go over with a carpet shampooer and then spray it with plain old Lysol spray so it won't mold. I have done this many times and so far it has always worked.

Our basement floor is pitched toward the floor drain. presumably if you got water in the basement from leaky water heater or malfunctioning washer it would head for that drain. We have overhead sewers, so nothing would back up from the floor drain from city sewers; it would be coming from inside somewhere.

I’m not sure what impact that leveling the floor with a self-leveling compound might if you have floor drains.

Steve, WTG, thanks for all the comments, super helpful!

Where to start...

Ok, so I'm sort of concerned about the asbestos question. I have been reading online and given the age of the house and appearance of the current tiles, it's most likely that either the tiles themselves or the adhesive, or both, have asbestos in them. So, we want to leave that there then, and cover it up. But we still have the problem of what to do with the tiles that are loose. I think maybe pick up any pieces not attached, and then maybe add glue to any tiles that are loose. And then maybe paint over it all with epoxy floor paint.

Then, we can cover the floor with either some kind of carpet or interlocking tiles.

On the topic of carpet, I don't think we want to do anything that requires glue of any kind, because if we ever have to take that up, then we have to worry about disturbing the asbestos tiles again, and we're right back where we started.

So, that means we probably can't get carpet at Lowes (unless the flooring guy was wrong, they don't really have any carpet options that don't use glue).

I googled for interlocking tiles and the only ones I found were WTG's recommendation (Modutiles) and GreatMats Max Tiles (which are available at Home Depot for a good 30-40% more than if you buy them direct. Jeez).

Oh, also re underlayment, I actually don't want underlayment if it's not needed. Partly to save money and also because I think any water issues will be better if there's not underlayment. That's why I really like the ModuTiles option, assuming their wood-look tile is available.

Or we'll reconsider carpeting... I wonder if we could lay carpet wall-to-wall without adhering it...

I'd rather do the tile though. I'll try another round of googling tomorrow.

Yikes, what a mess!!

quote:

Originally posted by ShiroKuro:
And then maybe paint over it all with epoxy floor paint.

There's no need to go to this extreme. In fact, there's no need to cover it up at all if you like the pattern.

It's only a problem if you mess with it - cut it, break it, etc.

If it were me, I'd just cover the floor with a nice area rug and call it good. I bought a wonderful, inexpensive, beautiful, hard-wearing area rug for our front entry. The rich pattern makes it look very expensive. The hard wearing material makes it durable and impervious to just about any kind of insult. I believe I got it at overstock.com. you can also look at what wayfair.com has.

Home Depot online has a gazillion area rugs and shipping is free over $45. If you need to return something, you just take it to the store and don't have to pay for return shipping.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
If it were me, I'd just cover the floor with a nice area rug and call it good. I bought a wonderful, inexpensive, beautiful, hard-wearing area rug for our front entry. The rich pattern makes it look very expensive. The hard wearing material makes it durable and impervious to just about any kind of insult. I believe I got it at overstock.com. you can also look at what wayfair.com has.

Good idea, and if you don't want the old floor peeking out at the edges you can paint the edges of the floor first.

I looked at home depot first. I didn't care for their selection. Overstock also has free shipping and better quality and a much nicer selection.

Really? I found nearly all the same name brands that I was interested in on both places and literally thousands to choose from. But then I'm not that fussy and tend to be overwhelmed by too many choices.

The no-hassle free return to a HD store wins it for me...unless you're saying Overstock does free return shipping?