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Old 07-25-2015, 12:38 PM
guitargarden guitargarden is offline
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Default Flooring ideas?

I have finally ripped up the almost 17 year old carpet in a room that has served as a play room, then a game room, and is now an exercise room with a sofa and television. It is about 300 square feet and on the ground level. Turns out under the carpet, there's old linoleum tile over concrete slab. Suspect the tile may contain asbestos given the age of the house. So, looks like the new flooring will go over it. The room gets heavy traffic since it has doorways leading to the garage, basement, and front entrance, and two active dogs often run through it. Appreciate suggestions for the next flooring. Thanks.
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Last edited by guitargarden; 07-25-2015 at 12:41 PM. Reason: Typo
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Old 07-25-2015, 12:52 PM
catdaddy catdaddy is offline
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Primarily because I have a multi-pet home I went with tile everywhere when I built my home 13 years ago. No regrets.
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Old 07-25-2015, 01:09 PM
Nela Nela is offline
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You can install any type of flooring over the linoleum that you want as long as the old flooring in in good condition and tight to the subfloor. How old is you house and how old is the linoleum? As a rule of thumb, vinyl flooring installed before around 1970 is most lilely asbestos. Also, if the tile is in 9"x9" squares you cna bet money that it is asbestos. You can almost bet the mastic is. BUT, vinyl flooring is NOT a fribile material (able to become airborn) unles it is broken. So if you can take it out in whole pieces there is no problems. As for the mastic, there is a material called "Orangesol" (great orange smell) that will deaolve the mastic so it can be scraped up then put into containers. Now, never try to burn the tile flooring or the mastic as then the ash will become a fribile material. When you haul the material to the dump it needs to be mixed with other construction debris due to the way the volume of ACM is calculated per ton of waste materials.

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Old 07-25-2015, 01:28 PM
gjd100 gjd100 is offline
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I'd go with tile as well do to the heavy traffic. I went with a wood looking tile in a similar situation as yours.

http://www.builddirect.com/Porcelain...g&gclsrc=aw.ds
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Old 07-25-2015, 02:05 PM
buddyhu buddyhu is offline
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Tile is a good bet in terms of durability and appearance. But if you are putting tiles on top of a concrete slab, you might end up with floors that are unpleasantly cold, and the room might also suffer from feeling cold for months at a time. You could put in some radiant heat under the tiles. If the exercise done in the room involves anything that is done on the floor (stretches, crunches, etc) tiles will not work well for such activities.

You could put something in that has greater insulation properties. I have heard good things about cork floors, but don't know how durable they would be. And that doesn't offer much improvement over tile in regards to exercising on the floor.

If you had carpeting in the room for 17 years, that seems like another viable alternative: you can get some nice padding under it, which would help insulate as well as making a softer walking surface (tile on concrete won't have any give to it). Much easier to do stretches and crunches on some type of rug or carpet.

IMO, the ideal (but costly) solution: tile floors, radiant heat underneath, and a small area rug for doing stretches and crunches.
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Old 07-25-2015, 02:08 PM
Jeff D Jeff D is offline
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It depends on what type of exercise equipment you have. If you have free weights then I would tile half the floor and put thick rubber mats on the rest of the floor in case you drop a weight. Tile will break quickly under the stress of a dropped weight, so rubber mats are the way to go.
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Old 07-25-2015, 03:05 PM
architype architype is offline
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Another alternative is carpet tiles or squares. They are adhesive backed, (peel and stick), and easy to install. They are extremely durable and tend to have a short nap. This would be good for the fitness equipment since a deeper nap will show compression marks.
They are about 18" x 18" or 24" x 24" and can be installed over the old floor tiles as long as they are still tight and not peeling or cracking and coming loose.
They are also easy to pull up and replace if you need to in high traffic areas. Almost all airports use carpet tile now for this reason. You can install them yourself.
You can also create easy patterns with them or border the room in one color and use another color for the center.
You still might want to consider using the snap together rubber tiles for better impact resistance and comfort in the areas where you will have weights and exercise equipment. They can be put down right over the carpet tiles.
Check carpet suppliers in your area that deal with commercial applications.

P.S.: Just did a quick check online and Lowes carries several types at different price points.
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Last edited by architype; 07-25-2015 at 03:26 PM.
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Old 07-25-2015, 05:56 PM
philjs philjs is offline
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If you've got a penny collection, you might try this!
Best use for pennies that I've ever seen...

Phil
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Old 07-25-2015, 07:08 PM
seannx seannx is offline
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I've seen the same floor style in the Cup Cafe at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, where I think they also used nickels. Beautiful effect, and I was told they buff it out every so often. If you calculate the cost per square foot, and consider the durability, it is very economical.
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Old 07-25-2015, 08:14 PM
BernebeM50 BernebeM50 is offline
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That's amazing, I would have never thought about that! I am going to have to start looking for some pennies.
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Old 07-26-2015, 06:56 AM
The Bard Rocks The Bard Rocks is offline
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Nothing beats ceramic tile (slate, brick) for functional wear and little trouble as well as always looking nice and in style. BUT you cannot put it over the tile unless you cover the tile with cement boards or something similar. Cement itself is perfect. As has been mentioned, this is not a floor you will want to go barefoot on, too cold.

Tile has a reputation for being extremely expensive. It can be, but it can also be VERY inexpensive if you pick a lesser-expensive tile or one that is on sale. To keep costs down, you have to avoid much of the add-ons that they sell. With a good surface under it (perfectly flat cement), all you need is the tile, the mastic (the "glue"which bonds it to the underlying surface) and grout (fills between tiles). What really racks up the cost is the labor, but if you are doing it yourself, that suddenly becomes $0 - and that's how it becomes the cheapest quality floor. Fortunately, installation is not especially difficult and for special tools, all you need is a tile cutter which you can rent or buy for $1-200.
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Old 07-26-2015, 10:13 AM
philjs philjs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by seannx View Post
I've seen the same floor style in the Cup Cafe at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, where I think they also used nickels. Beautiful effect, and I was told they buff it out every so often. If you calculate the cost per square foot, and consider the durability, it is very economical.
If you embed the pennies (or nickels, though that's 5x the square foot cost...yikes!) in a clear acrylic then you get the look with the added benefit of a floor that's nearly indestructible and easy to clean (and the pennies never oxidize).

Since they discontinued the penny here in Canada, I've been thinking seriously of doing the front entrance hall in pennies...before they are, literally, history.

Phil
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Old 07-28-2015, 11:55 AM
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Kitchen Guitars Kitchen Guitars is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by philjs View Post
If you've got a penny collection, you might try this!
Best use for pennies that I've ever seen...

Phil
Really cool. My wife would have to be commited because all of the pennys are not facing the same way lol
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Old 08-08-2015, 06:23 AM
guitargarden guitargarden is offline
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Thank you for all the suggestions. Really appreciate them.

After ripping up the carpet in one room, I continued down the hallway and into the family room. The family room has a sliding glass door to the backyard; plenty of wet and muddy feet pass through it. The total area that needs new flooring is now about 900 square feet over concrete slab as a result.

I've ruled out laying wall to wall carpet again, despite its warmth, because it's too difficult to keep clean with all the foot traffic (even with shoes off in the house) and with our dogs (even with wiping their feet). Plus, carpet isn't the best for allergies. Any choice has to take into account the clean up ease and smell factor too, given the dogs.

I took everyone's suggestions into consideration as I looked at options in various places and online. There are plenty of tile choices at various price points. Strand bamboo looks great. Some vinyl planks look pretty good. Pergo XP also has its appeal plus a lifetime residential warranty. Carpet squares have their advantages. The coin idea is pretty cool, although probably not the most time efficient choice to lay and not sure how it would affect resale when we get there.

Yesterday, I found some tile that looks like weathered wood planks that I really like. Pretty sure that's what will go in the family room (should go well with the fireplace) and am leaning toward using the same in the hallway and front room. The plan is to place a large area rug or maybe carpet squares over it in front of the seating area. (Radiant heat is out because of the added cost to encase the wires in another layer of cement.)

If I do use tile in the front room, rubber mats will be placed under or around exercise equipment.

Another option could be to use a different, square, stonelike tile along the traffic path from the front, down the hallway, and in the area in front of the sliding glass door, with the tile planks in the rest of the family room, and carpet squares in the rest of the exercise area of the front room.

We've laid plenty of tile around here so will likely do it ourselves. Surface is flat too, with just a couple areas needing some prep work.

Anyway, getting closer to a decision.
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Last edited by guitargarden; 08-08-2015 at 06:30 AM.
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Old 08-10-2015, 07:50 AM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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If your concrete floor is level and dry, tile is defnitely the way to go, lots of options on styles, and you can do it yourself with a tile saw and a few other tools.

I'm going with laminate flor in my master bedroom - the old carpet got wet from a leaky a/c.
Went to Lumber Liquidators on Saturday after perusing their web site. I will not be going back there. The 'good deals' ($0.59-$0.99/sqft) on the web site aren't avaialble online - and when you got to a store, they dont' have anything cheap, in fact the stuff they try to sell you (bait and switch) is more expensive than places like Lowes and Home Depot. And to top it off - if you wanted, say, 200 sqft, and they had 250 sq ft of a particular style, they would make you take it all.
I ordered 11 cases ($0.89/sqft) at Lowes Saturday night and picked it up Sunday morning, can't beat that.
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