New Cellar Floor
Hello. We have a typical situation in our cellar, an old crumbling cement floor that slopes quite a bit. We are considering a basement renovation and would be interested in hearing from anyone with experience in pouring a new floor. Or, any other creative solutions. Thanks, David
Hello. We have a typical situation in our cellar, an old crumbling cement floor that slopes quite a bit. We are considering a basement renovation and would be interested in hearing from anyone with experience in pouring a new floor. Or, any other creative solutions.
Thanks,
David
@slopegirl – we did a lot of work (complete bathroom reno, new walls, comepletely rewired electrical, yadda yadda)in the basement over the course of 18 months, so it’s hard to break out what this particular work cost vs. all the rest of it. But it definitely wasn’t cheap; my wild guess would say it was in the $30K range. OTOH we got a whole new floor to the house out of it, as the existing basement was straight out of a horror film.
David – we have the same scenario. When we did our upstairs reno we sheetrocked the cellar but have been waiting to do the floors which are old, very uneven concrete. I have decided against digging out because I don’t really want to invest the $$s right now into using someone who i’d feel comfortable doing that with. Also, in my opinion, unless you figure out a way to get some natural light in there, it isn’t worth the effort to make the ceiling much higher. It’s not like you’ll be having dinner parties down there. For the floor, we’ve talked about leveling and using ceramic or other cheap tiles but I think we’re partial now to a epoxy type finish – something smooth and hard that could handle water. We’d put a large area rug in the middle. In any case, i’d love to see what you do, if you feel like posting pictures when you are done.
curious as to what this type of work costs… geekspice, what did you spend?
Why don’t you give Kevin a call, his number is 347 961 5544, he will take care of your basement reno.
Please be careful when removing the existing concrete floor and not parts of the foundation walls. Refer to previous posts about the nightmares when digging too deep and undermining your foundation walls. Make sure you have a structural engineer to ensure no undermining and safety to your home and your neighbors home. Good Luck.
If you don’t need addional heat in your cellar obviously radiant is a waste, but if you are going to add more than a few radiators in this case you can have radiant heat for very little extra money. As for an unfinished space I assumed the renovation was for livability.
Flooding will have no effect on an in slab radiant system.
Edifice, Sincere question: is radiant heat a good investment in a cellar? Our boiler is in the cellar so it’s always warm down there. Also it’s an unfinished space. Finally, given the propensity of Brooklyn cellars to flood, wouldn’t the system be at risk?
It is the perfect, cheapest opportunity to use radiant heat especially if you have hot water heat, steam needs a heat exchanger. Just be sure to add at least 2″ of blue foam insulation below the slab. 1/2″ pex tubing on 8″ centers adds about $1 a sq ft for materials and the insulation about the same and it is not a lot of extra labor, very DIY for both. You could do decorative etched concrete and save a bit on the finished floor.
Thank you. I appreciate it!