Flooring in Model Area

[iBorg]

I had a flood in my model area....I had minimal loss although my carpet was ruined. Now comes the challenge, replace with carpet, tile, hardwood floor whatever. Suggestions? This is a basement room.

Mike

[Harry P.]

I had a flood in my model area....I had minimal loss although my carpet was ruined. Now comes the challenge, replace with carpet, tile, hardwood floor whatever. Suggestions? This is a basement room.

Mike

If it's prone to flooding I'd skip the carpeting and go with tile. Another benefit of tile: you can find dropped parts a lot easier!

If budget is a problem, go with self-stick vinyl tiles or vinyl sheet flooring. Simple and cheap.

[iBorg]

Its not prone to flooding. Something happened at the sewer and two pipes got disconnected. The city has even accepted responsibility and is paying for the repairs.

I'm worried about the uneveness of the floor effecting tile or vinyl sheet flooring.

Mike

[Harry P.]

Why not just paint the floor white and be done with it?

[Erik Smith]

Why not just paint the floor white and be done with it?

That works. You can paint concrete and it looks pretty good. If the floors are uneven, tile will not be feasible unless leveled. Same with most "rigid" materials - laminate, etc. I put some cheap laminate in my basement without leveling it off and it has worked great, though. I am not a fan of carpet - lost parts, vacuuming, dog barf...

[CAL]

I have carpet now, but plane on going to laminate.

[MikeMc]

Its not prone to flooding. Something happened at the sewer and two pipes got disconnected. The city has even accepted responsibility and is paying for the repairs.

I'm worried about the uneveness of the floor effecting tile or vinyl sheet flooring.

Mike

Go with marble.....cost is no object with city contracts.. ;)

Oh wait..you aren't one of them.......you'll be lucky if they paint it

[sobpinstriping]

If you want to put a tile or something like that down you can always get some gypcrete (sp?) to level out the floor you poor it on real real wet and when it drys its a perfectly level surface, it might be out of your price range but thats what I have done on a lot of job sites when the floor is really uneven.

[gunner]

Here is an odd thought but maybe a cool pattern done in epoxy flooring paint? Would make a plain floor really stand out.

[crazyjim]

My model building area is in a steel building with a concrete floor. Most of the floor has been painted with the special epoxy paint and paint chips added when wet. The actual model area (10' x 20') has been tiled with vinyl asbestos tiles. I put 6 or 7 coats of floor wax on the tile. Most dropped parts are easy to find, but there is a wheel down there somewhere that I haven't found in weeks of searching.

[Jantrix]

Since we're talking about a basement in WV, that floor is going to get real cold a good part of the year. I recommend carpet tiles. The 3' square carpet pieces that are used in commercial buildings. They are very short pile and have a thick rubber back, very good insulation. Easy to lay down, no glue, no stretching, no padding needed AND can often be gotten cheaply. Companies will often have extras from commercial contracts and will get rid of them VERY cheaply. I have this on my hobby room floor and I love it.

[Danger]

I highly recommend foam mats for flooring in the basement. When I was setting up my mancave we did the entire area with the economy foam mats from www.greatmats.com. They are a half inch thick and can be put on top of the concrete with no prep. They interlock together. About $5/tile, each tile is 24"x24".

I did need to add a floor mat for the office chair to be able to roll around. Any parts dropped to the floor are easily found.

This is the best solution to all the issues we have in our hobby rooms/mancaves.

Danger

[Erik Smith]

I highly recommend foam mats for flooring in the basement. When I was setting up my mancave we did the entire area with the economy foam mats from www.greatmats.com. They are a half inch thick and can be put on top of the concrete with no prep. They interlock together. About $5/tile, each tile is 24"x24".

I did need to add a floor mat for the office chair to be able to roll around. Any parts dropped to the floor are easily found.

This is the best solution to all the issues we have in our hobby rooms/mancaves.

Danger

I had not thought about that. Costco used to sell the interlocking pads - they were something like 12-15 dollars for a package of about 8. I have them in my garage. I haven't looked lately so I don't know of they still are carrying them. That would add some insulation but you wouldn't be able to roll around without a desk mat thing ( whatever those are called).

[mr moto]

My workroom has vinyl tile flooring from Home Depot similar what's at this link:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=202191231&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&MERCH=REC-_-product-2-_-202191235-_-202191231-_-N&locStoreNum=577

Can't beat it! Looks great, easy to clean and doesn't eat small parts. The cost is reasonable and the city's paying anyway.

[Aaronw]

It depends, when you drop a part do you want to pick through carpet near your feet, or search the whole room trying to figure out which dark corner the part bounced into.

I've had both carpet and linolium flooring under my work bench and I wouldn't consider one better than the other when it comes to finding lost parts, carpet tends to reduce the bounce factor, but obviously is not as easy to look through, hard flooring is theoretically easier to spot parts but they can bounce an amazing distance and it seems like the smaller the part the farther they bounce.

[Jordan White]

Step 1: Buy a large box of sticky traps

Step 2: Lay down on floor around work area

Step 3: ????

Step 4: Profit!

[iBorg]

I appreciate all the suggestions. I'm not sure how we're going to handle this. A lot depends on the city and what they want to do. As it is, it really has taken me away from even looking at kits I own. They're in a box.....SOMEWHERE!

Mike