I have roughly 600 sq ft of basement that needs new flooring after some unfortunate flooding this past summer. We had carpet over concrete and are now looking to lay vinyl planks down. There is about 150 sq ft off to the side (L-shaped basement) that is very uneven.
I'm a first time home owner, inexperienced with these types of jobs, and just trying to figure out the best way to approach this.
Do we try to level out the higher area only? Grind it down, or self leveling concrete? Or lay down a subfloor throughout the entire basement?
The majority of the floor is even, with one section that was possibly a crack in the foundation "repaired" by a previous owner. Max variation is nearly 1/4" in some spots around the edge of that patch. They had laid some ugly VCT over top to try and hide it.
And yes, the water problem has since been solved. And if it makes a difference, the area that has the raised patch is not the area we had water issues.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Best Answer
Type of flooring dictates how "perfect" it needs to be, carpet being the least work. Vinyl is flexible so just no real drastic changes.
Below are the basic steps to fixing uneven concrete floors.
Use a straight edge and mark high and low spots. (Really exaggerated case in this image)
Or if you like gadgets, Bosch has a new laser out that lets you easily mark the uneven parts.
You use a grinder (with dust mask and safety goggles) for high spots. You can rent a large floor grinder or get on your hands and knees.
and SLC (self-leveling compound) in low spots. For SLC just follow the manufacturer's instructions. If the floor is really bad you may want to pour the stuff over the whole thing.