Carpet with or without padding for basement

[littleme2]

Our basement had a water problem - got wet when it rained 2 weeks ago. We got rid of the old carpet and padding.

While looking at berber carpet for our basement, someone suggested that we should just get the carpet glued down and not put in padding. That way, if it leaked, then we could just dry-vac it.

I've never heard of anyone doing it this way. Any thoughts?

I thought about doing flor tiles but they are just too expensive.

BTW, our basement is about 1600 sq. ft, so putting in carpet is really, really expensive.

Thanks.

[newnana]

Excellent question. I think I'd explore other options. You can get ceramic tiles normally priced at 77cents each at places like the home depot. Or wait until they get a big shipment and sometimes they go on sale even cheaper than that.

We recently looked at houses. 2 of them had carpet in the basement with no padding and we hated it. But I guess it depends on how you use your basement. We are in ours a lot and DD plays on the floor in it and we really didn't like the feel of it or the look. It could just be the way they did it, though.

How often does the basement leak? Have you done anything to fix the leak?

Michelle

[jamsmu]

My parents glued down the carpet in their basement. BAD idea. Seriously... it was really, really hard (and we were 3 girls, so cartwheel mishaps were a bad thing down there) and it was cold. DH and I padded our berber. A lot of berber installers include padding in their pricing.

I'd also consider alternate flooring. Maybe a cork or something if you don't want to do tiles.

[shilo]

don't know 'how' you use your basement... do you really need the whole 1600sq ft carpeted? i've just started watching some DIY and HGTV type shows and a couple have done some neat treatments to the cement subfloor (painting, staining, acid washing, etc.) that looked pretty neat. if there were parts/areas that didn't need to be carpeted, maybe a combo of this with the cool FLOR tiles as 'area rugs' just where you need them would be in your budget?

lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[littleme2]

We walk barefoot thru the whole house so ceramic tiles and just painting the cement would be too cold.

We definitely want to carpet the whole basement but we are worried that if it leaks again, it would be costly to fix.

[DebbieJ]

Fix the leak and put padding under your carpet.

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03
Breastfeeding After Reduction is possible! www.bfar.org

http://www.bfar.org/members/fora/style_avatars/Ribbons/18months-bfar.jpg

[ColorBlue]

Don't put wall to wall again, because you will just have to rip it out again if it gets wet. You will not be able to clean it or dry it adequately even if its just glued down with no padding. We have a similar problem and are using carpet tiles from HOme Depot made by Milliken. I don't think they are much more expensive than wall to wall and I also found a 10% coupon. ALso many time they have a particular color on sale. Even if it is more expensive, think about having to rip out and throw away other carpet if it floods again and the costs of the carpet tiles pays for itself.

The milliken legato tiles are not glued down in any way, they stay down with friction. You cannot tell that its tiles it looks just like wall to wall. Our installation is not complete but so far its been really easy. Also it comes with its own padding. If it gets wet you can just pick up the tiles and hang them to dry or lay them out or whatever.

Also they only have a few colors in the store but they have more that is special order which took only a week or so.

Hope that helps. Tracy

[american_mama]

Here's a similar thread from just a month or so ago. It has more info. about the Milliken carpet tiles, including a cheaper source

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=37&topic_id=416303&mesg_id=416303&listing_type=search

As I say in the thread, we did wall-to-wall in our carpet. Although we are still relying on luck to keep it dry, I should have added that we appeared to have a pretty dry basement in the first place and did a small thing to test it before putting the wall-to-wall in.

The previous carpet in this house was a thin, scratchy, no pad carpet that felt similar to the scratchy side of a sponge. My parents have the same carpet in their unfinished basement rec room. It is unpleasant, holds on to pet hair like the dickens, and provides no padding, and we loathed it in this house from the second we saw it.

You might consider a combination approach. Maybe vinyl or pergo flooring with large area rugs. You can buy carpet pad for under the area rugs at any carpet store, and it makes the area rug feel very nice underfoot, but it's not glued in place, so a cinch to lift up to dry if need be. We have that in our living room under a 9 x 11 foot rug, and it's nice.

We have ceramic tile in our basement bathroom and it's freezing underfoot in the winter. Doesn't matter in a basement bathroom, but would be unpleasant for the whole floor.