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Anyone who has gone through this before….

In the context of a partial gut rehab we had to pull tile up in our basement, which has a poured slab. The existing tile was poorly leveled, so it had to go. When pulling up the tile a few bad spots (looked like moisture) emerged which we cleaned up and patched with some new concrete.

So far, so good, except a lot of the slab sounds as if it has water or air under it when you stomp on it…there’s a hollowness to it. We’re trying to figure out if we need to break it up, cart it off and get a new slab poured, but we want to avoid it if at all possible…it’s not green and the mess and expense is considerable.

Part of me just wants to pour on a few bags of self-levelling cement and call it a day, as clearly it has been like this for a long time and didn’t break, but I would like someone to evaluate it. We don’t have a GC, and I have the feeling any concrete or foundation contractor is going to say to break it up and pour a new slab..surgeons like removing things. Does anyone have a recommendation for someone to evaluate the slab that’s there and advise about the sanity of tiling over it?

For what it’s worth, the basement doesn’t seem to have a moisture problem, with one exception which has been repaired.