faux wood tiles for basement floor?
Hi, I want to cover concrete floor in to be finished basement. The slab us very old and not very even but there are no issues with water. My wifee wants something which looks like wood. I am thinking to by tileflex tiles with faux wood finish. They will not rot, keep warm and hopefully…
Hi,
I want to cover concrete floor in to be finished basement. The slab us very old and not very even but there are no issues with water.
My wifee wants something which looks like wood.
I am thinking to by tileflex tiles with faux wood finish. They will not rot, keep warm and hopefully go over uneven surfaces. They are expensive, but it is comparable to wood floor with underfloor.
Please tell me what you think. Is there alternatives? What was your experiences?
http://www.greatmats.com/products/tileflex.php
If you will consider leveling the floors, I highly recommend doing a floating cork floor. We put it in our garden apt. and my sister, who resides there, loves it. It is beautiful (people always compliment it), was affordable, is comfortable to walk & sit on, maintains a constant temperature, easy to care for, static resistant, hypoallergenic and mold and pest resistant as well as the very nature of cork will allow it to expand/contract in all directions, vs. wood only going with the grain. It is also a sustainable material as the cork tree is not cut down to harvest the cork, only the bark is removed and the tree regrows every 7 years or so.
I’m in a similar situation. Trying to find something to cover an older concrete floor in my basement. It’s in fairly good shape, but not very smooth or level. I wanted a wood look too and considered Trafficmaster Allure Ultra from Home Depot. It’s a floating snap together solid vinyl plank flooring that’s supposed to be water tight. It looks quite nice (a number of wood patterns), but I have heard that installation can be tricky. My biggest concern is that while I don’t have moisture issues, there is always the possibility of a washer overflow or busted pipe. I would be concerned about water getting underneath the flooring and causing mold problems. Right now I’m leaning toward a basic unglazed 1 or 2 inch hexagon ceramic floor tile on a mesh backing. The size is small enough to conform to irregularities of the concrete and water can’t get underneath. Obviously it doesn’t give the look of wood, but it is an appropriate flooring for a utilitarian area of an old house.
The lower floor of this condo has amazing tiles that look exactly like wood. It’s probably expensive, but pretty amazing…
http://www.bhsusa.com/brooklyn/288-7th-street/condo/1134036#
It can be installed over an uneven floor and, because it is vinyl, will contour to the uneven-ness. But, the planks are installed as a “floating” floor so they are not adhered directly to the existing floor, only to each other, so if the existing floor is really bad, the plank floor will literally be floating above in some areas and you will feel it when you walk on it.
Builtin_studio…that armstrong floor you linked to…can that be applied over an uneven (very uneven) plywood subfloor without having to use a self-leveler?
http://www.garagefloors.com has some interesting options as well…all rubber/vinyl so there’d be no issues if it ever got wet. I have the “coin” pattern in my garage and love it…very easy on your feet instead of concrete.
Hello,
I would agree with BuiltIn studio. I would look at Nemo’s, it is a porcelain tile and you might not have to self level the floor, the installer might be able to do that using the thinset
For that wood tile option, you would need to self-level the floor, which I would recommend anyway, if it can fit in the budget and ceiling height isn’t a problem.
I like the cork idea.
If you are looking for other options, a much lower budget solution is actually from Armstrong, sold at Home Depot. Its a vinyl plank flooring.
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/MoreViewsPage?productId=100609202&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
For what it is, the results are surprisingly good. It will definitely work over an uneven floor and its about $2/SF, comes in a variety of “species”.
It wlooks like it would look nice, but how will it perform on an uneven subfloor? I couldn’t tell from their web site if you need to level the floor prior to install.
As an alternative, have you considered cork?