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Hi, I've been thinking of wanting to add vinyl or laminate floor planks on my basement floor and I zeroed in on a few options.
What I plan on using are subfloor panels because I live with my parents and I doubt they'll trust me with pouring self leveling concrete. Also, I think the unevenness of the current concrete isn't too bad.
I looked into Dricore and Barricade subfloor panels and they seem good, but quite expensive. I found a cheaper, bigger alternative that is like the other panels mentioned before, but it is made with plywood not OSB.
Apparently with the Dricore and Barricade panels you can put them straight onto the concrete, then put the finished flooring on top of the panels. Since the alternative is made of plywood, I'm wondering if I could do the same or if I would need some sort of underlayment moisture protection layer like this DMX roll.
Also, if anyone tried something similar with subfloor panels, it could really help if you share how you did it.
Thanks.
Use construction adhesive (sub- floor glue) like what is used to glue plywood to floor joists in a typical wood framed floor. It comes in large sized caulking tubes and applies with a large size caulking gun. We typically cut the plywood in half to 4'x4' pieces. Stagger the joints in the plywood and apply good sized dots of glue (about 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 1" high) at about 1 foot centers throughout the middle of each sheet and more often at the sheet edges. This will help float/ support the plywood over any low spots in the concrete. If there are any lippage issues at the plywood joints (one sheet higher than the adjacent sheet) you can feather them in with a belt sander.
I agree that self leveling compound on the concrete floor will not hold up.
There are a few other options.
You can drill through the SLC before hammer drilling into the concrete. You could do the SLC hole a larger diameter since you'll be anchoring to the concrete. It will help to know the depth of the SLC but you can feel a difference when drilling.
Your plan is concrete subfloor, slc to level, plywood tap conned, rosin paper, nail down hardwood.
You could do concrete subfloor, slc to level, underlay, plywood tap conned, rosin paper and then the nail down hardwood.
If the SLC cracks and you have it sandwitched between a foam underlay and the concrete slab the cracked SLC won't have anywhere to go and even if it did manage to move the foam underlay will prevent any noise. The worst thing is SLC that cracks and moves sandwiched between two hard layers and then it sounds like you are walking on popcorn.
I have a plywood subfloor, SLC, underlay, plywood sleepers screwed through the SLC (I didn't predrill), underlay, engineered hardwood. It has the softer feel of a floating floor but that's what the wife likes.
SLC is painful to install, it won't self level. I used plywood to bring up really low spots and SLC in a couple lifts in certain areas of my install. You need to have the proper primer ( different for concrete vs plywood ) and you should be ready to trowel, screed and spike roll the SLC. Not sure how much of this you are planning to do yourself.
I should mention that I also used a floor edger to remove a high spot in my plywood. In your case I'd use a concrete planner if you have high spots in your slab. I like the Makita 5" concrete planner - it does a nice job of staying flat and the dust collection is excellent with a shop van on the shroud.