I just chose tile. I talked with my contractor about doing radiant floor heating underneath and he said he wouldn't do it -- has had very bad results over time. Its great initially, and then breaks down is costly and hard to repair. He recommended we work on getting heat into the room near the floor, and I put area rugs over top of the tile to warm it up.

After removing my carpet from basement due to flooding, I installed ceramic tiles that look like hardwood. It is really beautiful and people think it is real wood at first. I put area rugs down for comfort and kids' play areas.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We recently considered stained concrete for our basement as we are currently finishing it.

http://www.google.com/search?q=stained+concrete+flooring&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

The stained concrete looks beatiful!

A family member who is a commercial architect told me that, although stained concrete is very fashionable for commercial applications right now, it is a pain to do properly, ends up being more expensive than flooring, and doesn't hold up well. It's very difficult to get the concrete to take the stain evenly, even when the concrete is poured for this purpose. He said that they had one job where the crew left a ladder sitting on the concrete for too long, and when they applied the stain, they could see the outline of the ladder (and there was no way to get it out).

Anonymous wrote:12:50 here - boss's sump pump FAILED. ugh.

THIS http://www.basementwatchdog.com/

12:50 here - boss's sump pump FAILED. ugh.

I agree with 23:02. My last house got water in the basement a couple of times over the years and the carpet was ruined. My current house has nice tile in the basement and I like it. In a few years when we actually use it (we don't need the extra space right now), I'll put down area rugs to warm it up.

I wouldn't do laminate. My boss's sump pump during some flooding, and his brand new laminate had to be replaced.

We have a semi-finished basement and put down the glue-together strips that look like wood. It is fine. Feels warmer to the feet than tile, but isn't as attractive. The attractive part was the price (cheap!) and the fact that it can float over an uneven basement floor in an old house where the builders never envisioned the basement as a livable space.

Could you not put radiant heating? Either electric or hot water? It'll help dry anything in case of flooding, and it'll keep it warm, at least that's what we plan to do once we're finally tired of the carpet. (it came w the house).