insulating old basement concrete floor

5/19/2011 at 4:53:39 PM

There are many options to reduce the cold on the basement floor. there is a wide range of flooring available to you an cork is most certainly one of them. If you have roudy animals in your house then don't even think of cork. There is also a product you can gat at your local hardware store and it is a 2x2 piece of plywood with a rubber spacer on one side to keep it off the concrete. You can then install almost anything on top of it. Make a few calls to floor suppliers and price out cork vs vinyl and plywood ect.

5/26/2011 at 11:56:43 AM

Hi Kay,

The product I use for a subfloor is called DriCore. It is a 2' x 2' tounge and grove plywood laminated to a plastic raised substrate. It will give you a warmer floor, a level floor to install your laminate, carpet or vinyl on top of, and gives you water proofing for the flooring of your choice. The floor drain stays where it is, as any moisture below the subfloor panels will make its way to the floor drain and out of your house(assuming the floor is properly sloped). You could definitely install cork over top of this subfloor. The DriCore product I use I get from Home Depot, but other subfloor systems are available from Rona and Lowes as well. It would be best to check these out to see if they can work for you.

Hope this helps,

Bill Clawsie

Clawsie Contracting

416-579-7366

7/10/2011 at 9:45:20 AM

I used this same product last year and it is great--nice tight tongue and grove, and the embossed plastic ribs underneath it are easy to shim using cedar shingles, and then you can add any type of floor you like afterwards. They also have a product like this with styrofoam underneath which will definitely help to make ti warmer. I preferred to maintain better air circulation under the sub-floor and opted not to use this, but my floor was much warmer than previously, which was just concrete with vinyl tiles on top.

It's also much easier than raising the floor with sleepers or wood furring strips, and since the bottom is already a tight fitting plastic, there's no need to add a separate vapour barrier.

7/10/2011 at 1:11:24 PM

Will this work when the floor is sloped toward the drain?