Basement slab design for wooden finish flooring
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How do you design and lay the concrete slab for a basement where the finish floor will be wood?
I’m wondering if there is anything different to a ‘normal’ slab; perhaps one should plan to have the insulation above the slab rather than below, for example. That way it might go
- finish floor
- subfloor
- foam
- slab
- membrane
- sand/gravel
It seems like I could save some money on the slab finish since it doesn’t need to be smoothed to the same degree that would be needed for a vinyl or even stained finish floor. Having the insulation above slab seems like it might work well with the idea suggested in FHB some time ago for insulating a garage floor – framework of 2x4s with foam inbetween, subfloor nailed over and then finish wood.
I’m building this mid-Vancouver Island, so cool but not freezing climate – 18″ or so frost depth – on sandy gravel soil. There’s no building inspections out here, so something clever that might upset a typical inspector could be considered 😉
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An entire article on just this topic, complete with photos and details. And at this website, no less!
https://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/articles/wood-floor-survive-anywhere.aspx?nterms=65782&ac=ts&ra=fp
Yah, I read that and it seemed aimed at adding a wood floor post facto. I was curious if there is anything different one might do given the intention to do a wooden floor right from the start.
I should probably have pointed out that this is a walk-out basement with large windows etc, not a subterranean lair. That's somewhere else, in an undisclosed secret location with all the special underpants for wearing outside my tights....
Keep in mind that, sub-grade, you are restricted to engineered wood, and can't use solid