Basement Renovation Progress Report - Subfloor

Believe it or not, we're still chipping away at the basement renovation. We always seem to have other things going on each weekend that keep us from putting in a good day's (or 2 days') work. Sometimes Tom mentions taking on a house flip, and I think, "We can't even get ours renovated in a reasonable time - how could we do two?"

So most of the subfloor is in now. There is still an area in the workshop that we're holding off on completing until the window is replaced. It's on order now so, fingers crossed, it'll be in by the end of June.

The subfloor we decided on was AmDry insulated flooring in 2 ft x 4 ft panels. Along with the plywood and foam insulation, the panels have a "waffled" vapour barrier underside that allows moisture and air to flow beneath. If there's ever a water problem, the water will flow under the floor to the sump in the corner.

The panels fit together with plastic connectors rather than connecting directly to each other. It's still tongue and groove, but the boards are all "groove" and the connectors are all "tongue" so you never have to think about which way to place the board; it always fits.

It was a little more expensive than the other subflooring available, but it also has a higher R value (R-5 vs. R-1.7), meaning that our basement will stay toasty warm in winter.

I say "we", but Tom did most of it. I had fun banging some of the panels into place, but I left all of the cutting to him. The floor is laid in a staggered pattern to minimize long joints and flexing, with shims placed along the wall all the way around the room. This small extra space created by the shim allows for expansion and contraction of the panels over time/temperature changes.

We're both really happy with how it looks and how easy it was to install. I like that it looks like the panels are grouted. The dogs were a little wary of walking on it, but once we moved some furniture and a dog bed into the area, they decided it wasn't so bad after all.

And there you have it. Not the most exciting update - but some progress has been made.