Basement Bathroom Flooring options

[mrmichaeljmoore]

I am having a full basement bathroom installed and just wanted to ask a few questions regarding flooring choices.
Half of the basement is already finished. So, we will be breaking through the wall that separates the finished from the unfinished side and adding a bathroom there.

The current finished area is on 2x4 sleepers with 3/4 plywood and covered in carpet.
So the bathroom is framed out with 2x4 sleepers glued and red Tapcon screwed into the cement, with 3/4 tongue and groove underlayment sub-floor.

We were all set to do tile, but I found through a little bit of research that tile over concrete sleepers is a recipe for disaster. Moisture/dampness equals movement of 2x4s and therefore cracked grout/tile.

So, if we decide not to rip up the current floor and do a mudjob, then tile, what are our other options?

Can we do a engineered hardwood on top of 2x4 sleepers?
I'd rather not do vinyl or linoleum...

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

mm

[jadnashua]

Engineered hardwood can go over that, but you have to temper that with the moisture that may come from the bath itself. Most of those require installation over a vapor barrier, so moisture from below isn't the killer, potentially that from above might be. Of the available brands, my preference is www.kahrs.com. They've been in the wood flooring business over 150-years, and it's the only thing they do - they do it well. You'd have to see what they recommend. I'd check on www.johnbridge.com for thoughts on tiling what you have. Lots more experienced tilers there.

[mrmichaeljmoore]

Engineered hardwood can go over that, but you have to temper that with the moisture that may come from the bath itself. Most of those require installation over a vapor barrier, so moisture from below isn't the killer, potentially that from above might be. Of the available brands, my preference is www.kahrs.com. They've been in the wood flooring business over 150-years, and it's the only thing they do - they do it well. You'd have to see what they recommend. I'd check on www.johnbridge.com for thoughts on tiling what you have. Lots more experienced tilers there.

The folks at John Bridge and *********....plus a few other sites, said that tiling over concrete on sleepers is not a good idea at all. In fact, they all pretty much said that it will fail...
Thats why I started this new thread to try to find alternatives....

If we dont rip out what we have already and do a mud job, engineered hardwood floor may be the way to go....

ugh.

[JOHN_P]

You might consider looking at Stilelock ceramic tiles. A few weeks ago Lowes just started carrying these and I thought the idea was interesting. Ceramic tiles with no grouting. Essentially they are ceramic tiles encased in a very hard but somewhat flexible carrier that has tongue and groove to fit them together. It ends up looking just like a grouted ceramic tile floor. I was the first one to buy them from our local Lowes so I had no opinions to go on, but in the end it worked out great. I was all done with the flooring, had it cut around the rounded corners of my cast iron tub, then a week later decided to bust out the cast iron tub and replace it with something different. So I needed to redo that row of tiles, just pulled out that row and added a new row and it was done. If I had done ceramic tile and grouting it would have meant busting up some of the tile I just put down. Anyhow, without getting too long winded, for a basement application, I think it would be ideal since there is no grouting to deal with. It's a free-floating setup just like much of the tongue/groove flooring. It's expensive at about $7/sq ft and after initially cursing it, I find that it makes for a great solution and will be using it again for another area in our basement.

[dlarrivee]

I second the Delta FL suggestion.