Some people just love the look of a wood floor. Some people even want to put wood as basement flooring. Although very risky (not impossible, but risky), there are much safer and more durable alternatives than a wood basement floor. Why not consider laminate for your basement flooring instead of the wood floors. Laminate flooring for basements is much more water resistant than wood. Some laminate manufacturers even warranty their flooring for basements directly on the concrete, providing it has some type of underlay. Although I personally wouldn’t install laminate basement flooring in that manner, I’d much rather utilize one of the basement subfloor strategies you can find clicking around this site and have the laminate over that.
Basically, laminate basement flooring is made of several layers of plastic-type resins. It’s then compressed under high pressure to a hard fiber or particleboard core. Then a type of melamine backing is applied and on the surface a printed pattern is placed. Laminates can be made to look like basically any type of surface, but wood, marble and flagstone appearance seem to be the most common. But you do have a choice. It’s typically put together in a tongue and groove fashion just like most natural wood flooring, however, unlike natural wood flooring, laminates are generally not attached to the subfloor. Most laminates carry at least a 10 year warranty against fading or staining. You just need to keep in mind that if it does get wet and absorb moisture, it will damage it. You can put precautions in place and you will probably hear a lot of difference of opinion on the subject of wet basements and if you should use laminate as a basement flooring. If you’re not on the concrete though and using a subfloor like ones recommended on this site that sit off the concrete, I’d say if it’s what you want then why not. Just be sure to read the manufacturer’s suggestions to ensure that they don’t advise against having their’s as laminate basement flooring, as some do advise against it. Test out your basement floor first for moisture though cause when laminates go bad, they are hard to fix.
A key point to make about laminate basement flooring is that the basement floor needs to be flat. It has to be level. Uneven basement surfaces are not wise to install laminate flooring over. A general rule of thumb for laminates is that within a 10 foot radius there shouldn’t be more than a 3/16 of an inch difference between the high and low spot. If there is you would need to start levelling basement floors. And you’d definitely want to fill in all the bumps and bruises along the way. Still no worries though, there are plenty of float leveling products made to level floors and they will work just as well for basement flooring.