Want to know what the best flooring options for your basement are?
That's coming right up.
Welcome to Homebuyer's school
brought to you by Brookfield Residential.
Hi everyone, I'm Karl Yeh. Welcome to another Homebuyer's
School video, a channel where you get the latest strategies, tactics, and tips from
home buying experts. And remember, if this is your first time on this channel
and you want to get the latest strategies from the experts, hit the subscription button
below. Hit the little notification bell so you don't miss anything.
So today I'm joined by Deborah Armstrong, Senior Interior Designer with Brookfield
Residential and the question we're gonna answer today is, "What is the best
basement flooring options over concrete?" So Deborah, what what kind of flooring
would you use over concrete to begin with?
Well you can use almost anything. Again,
it will probably depend on your lifestyle and what you plan to do in that basement.
I mean, carpet is great. It's warm, ya know. It's comfy. Then you can use tile in
certain areas. However, tile is going to be fairly cold unless you have in-floor
basement heating. And then there's cork options for exercise rooms.
Again, an excellent choice along with rubber for an exercise room or maybe a
child's play room. Then you will have all your...you can do hardwood, luxury vinyl
plank and engineered you know.
It's pretty much options, whatever...
All the options. Again, it's
it's gonna depend what you're gonna do down there. If you're gonna be on
TV, laying on the floor, maybe you want that
nice carpet. If you're gonna be doing activities in the gym, then you're gonna
want cork or rubber.
What kind of hard surface flooring should you use or
can you use? Or is it still based on entirely on your lifestyle?
Yes, exactly just like
what I had mentioned. Your tiles, your luxury vinyl planks, hardwood.
All those.
So how do you choose that best flooring for your basement?
Again, with your lifestyle. You're gonna, you know,
look at how you're gonna use that space, you know, and then go from there.
Okay. Anything in terms of finishing ideas, in terms of insulation for the basement?
Yes, with a lot of these products
especially hard surfaces, unlike carpet, you're gonna want to make sure that that
concrete is 100% level. When we install in a new home
we make sure that that's part of the process that the floor is leveled out
before the hardwood goes down or the luxury vinyl plank or the tile that you
don't want to have that snapping sound, because the floors are floating, you see.
So if you walk over it and there's a dip in the concrete, you'd hear the snapping sound.
So you want to make sure that that floor is, you know, a hundred percent straight.
Unlike carpet, it's going to mold to that floor. It's not as big of a problem.
And in terms of, let's say insulation, so you go with a hard surface,
is there anything you need to put on top of the concrete?
Yes. Sometimes, you know, people will put
like waterproof barriers down there which is a good idea. Sometimes, you know
maybe a six millimeter cork, which is a really good cork. It's a really good
natural insulator. It just gives a little bit of warmth maybe without putting in
in-floor heating because that can get very expensive. And sometimes it's
not in everybody's budget.
And so if you were to decide with in-floor heating
you'd put it underneath...
The concrete, yes. Underneath the concrete, yes.
In the case of hardwood floors. In tile, sometimes they
put a special mat down on top of the concrete that has those little wires
going through for the heating, and then they put a special layer, skin layer
over and then your tile.
And when we were talking about vinyl plank
flooring or even engineered hardwood, does that...would that apply it to over
concrete as well?
Yes, you can put those over concrete as well.
Oh same thing, but then you'd think about the insulation.
Yeah, you can put cork onto those if you want, waterproof barriers, things like that.
Perfect, anything else to add?
Nope.
Awesome, well thank you very much for joining us and we'll catch you next time.
That's another edition of Homebuyer's School.
Tune in next time for more expert tips and tricks,
and visit HomebuyersSchool.ca to bring you
one step closer to finding your dream home.
As with everything, it would be great if you
like and share our videos. Also, please
let us know if you have any home buying
questions you want us to answer.