OT: Good carpet for basement?

[kinntj]

In a few weeks, we'll have a finished basement that will be ready to have carpet installed. What's a great carpet for the basement? I was thinking berber, but I'm not sure about looping that will snag from moving furniture, dogs and other things.

The carpet will go down the stairs, through a hall that passes the bathroom and cover a large area that will be play and family room.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[SUZCRUISE]

I recommend commerical grade carpeting. Like they put in offices, hotels etc.
It is very durable and doesn't show the dirt, doesn't make "lines" from furniture sitting on it... great for kids and dogs.

 

[DebMcDonald]

I also recommend a commercial grade carpet. I had it in our basement/play room and I also do daycare and five years later you would have thought it was new. We just built a new house and I did commercial for the basement again and am very happy.

 

[3DisneyBuggs]

I've been told by my family that basements should have tile in case of flooding. We will be finishing a basement once we close on our house. I would like to put carpeting becasue my kids will be playing down there. It's warmer, more comfy and probably cheaper than ceramic tile.But my father insists a basement should have tile. Is your carpet glued down?

 

[Gillian]

We have glued down loop commercial carpet. It's fine, except that the cats have torn up the stairs. They like the loops (like berber but smaller). Before we had carpet with padding (not installed by us) and the hot water heater leaked and it was impossible to get the water out. It had to be replaced.

I'm looking into getting just concrete. The existing concrete can be polished & stained & we could put rugs where we want them.

Tile I'm sure would be fine, but I totally hate tile myself. Too much upkeep, especially with the grout, not good for dogs, what if they break, etc.

 

[SUZCRUISE]

If you are afraid of water in the basement, They have these panels you can see them at www.dricore.com. They are raised with plastic kind of knobs under and of the basement gets wet it can go under the panel and dry. I got them at Menards they are about 3 foot square and $5.00 each and piece together with no nailing or glue. You can then put the carpet on top of them.
I did this in one room of my basement that I thought I might eventually use as a bedroom... it makes the whole room way warmer and the ground is not so cold to walk on or play on.

 

[graygables]

We had carpet in our basement. Then we had the Great Flood of Walt Disney World 2003. In the wee hours before we were due to fly to WDW for our Kellogg's Sweepstakes Family Vacation, our water heater ruptured and flooded our basement. We did our best to drain it before we left and FIL took over so we could go ahead. When we got home, the mess was unbelievable.

We swore we'd never carpet down there again, BUT we have 2 bedrooms and a playroom, so decided to do it anyway (after putting in a tankless water heater )

We used Legato carpet tiles from Home Depot and I LOVE them. (www.legatocarpet.com) They fit together seamlessly, clean beautifully, and if the kids happen to grind red modeling clay into one of them, it's easy to lift it up and replace with a new one. We used a runner down the stairs, then the Legato in the hall, bedrooms, and playroom. It has the pad and a moisture barrier built in, too, so that's nice. It was a weekend DIY project. The nice thing, too, is that DDs want to change their room decor a bit, so we only have to pull out what's in their rooms, not the whole basement. Actually 8yo wants 11yo's carpet, so with a little tweaking and a few extra pieces, we'll be saving some on the remodels. We've used carpet "squares" before with not-so-great results, but I can highly recommend Legato.

 

[Darcy03231]

We have carpeting in our basement. Berber type with a special foam backing that resists mold and mildew (its about a 1/4" thick). Its made specifically for basements. We originally installed this type of carpet 10 years ago. We ended up having water in our basement three times in that time period. Each time we just used the wetvac to get as much of the water out as possible and then used fans to dry it quickly. After it was completely dry we shampooed it and dried it again. Came out great every time. Last fall we put an interior drain system in the house to prevent us from having water again. We had to pull up all the carpet. There was no sign of any mold or mildew from any of the times it had gotten wet. We bought it from a local small carpet store. It was extremely reasonable (about $20/square yard installed). We found it wears very well. After 10 years it still looked great. If it hadn't been for doing the interior drain system it would still be down.

 

[kinntj]

If you are afraid of water in the basement, They have these panels you can see them at www.dricore.com. They are raised with plastic kind of knobs under and of the basement gets wet it can go under the panel and dry. I got them at Menards they are about 3 foot square and $5.00 each and piece together with no nailing or glue. You can then put the carpet on top of them.
I did this in one room of my basement that I thought I might eventually use as a bedroom... it makes the whole room way warmer and the ground is not so cold to walk on or play on.

Yes, our contractor has 3 pallets of this in our garage waiting to go in, so he's on the same page as you. He got them at Menard's too. We were also thinking of us or future home buyers using a portion as a bedroom as we're putting in a 60" closet too for this possibility.

 

[kinntj]

I never thought of commercial grade carpeting to put down there. It's good to know that the water heater could cause a flood, because I never thought of that. The furnace and hot water heater will be in it's own storage room big enough to accomodate servicing and such. If it did burst and flood, I'm hoping it would take awhile to get around the whole basement. With the dricore maybe we could spare some of the carpeting on the far side of the basement.

We are putting tile in the bathroom and we're leaving the storage areas concrete. We had tile in our 1st house in the basement and didn't like it. Too hard and it would break when moving furniture. Since we're drywalling the entire thing, we wanted to feel homey and match the rest of the house.

Thanks for the suggestions. Keep up the advice on carpeting. It's good to get alot of different opinions and options available.

 

[graygables]

Just so you know, our water heater was a 50 gallon and it filled the basement with 3" of water in less than an hour and a half (I'd gone down at 130am to get DD's alarm clock, she was up at 3am to go potty and told us that her floor was "wet". Talk about an underestimate! It was a swimming pool. Now, we also did not have a drain (we live on a hill, so never really needed it and DH had used the basement drain to plumb in a toilet for the half bath) which contributed to the situation. Had we had a gravity drain or a pump, it would not have been such a big mess. Ankle deep, in December, cell phones and school books, backpacks for our trip in 3 hours. The HORROR!!! (I'm scarred, can ya tell?)