Flooring for HT dedicated room (1 Viewer)

[JamesP]

My wife and I have recently been looking at buying a house, most of the ones that we have looked have unfinished basements. Which is perfect for what I want to do with them. An unfinished basement is one of high priorities in what I want in a house.

But now I am in the planning stages for the dedicated theater room, and I figured that I should start the planning at the bottom. So what are good choices for the flooring for a concrete basement. So far I have thought of:

Padding and carpet or laminate. But should I do a lift on the floor with plywood or 2x2's and plywood and then do the finishing on the floor.

BTW I am also planning on having a pool table in the basement as well.

Final plan for the room is an overhead projector, 7.1 sound and have it all pumped through a HTPC.

 

[Robt_Moore]

James:

I used to run the flooring department in one of those big box building centers, so I may be able to answer your questions.

You can put almost any type of flooring you like over that concrete slab, except 3/4 in solid wood strip flooring. If you are making a multipurpose room, you might want to do the whole floor in a laminate, vinyl tile, or ceramic tile. You can either use an area rug in the home theater area or even get a piece of real carpeting cut to a specific size and have the edges bound for a custom rug. I have even seen the just the perimeter of the room done in a wood laminate, and berber carpet permanently installed in the center. You can be creative with vinyl tile--there is some really nice 1/8 in thick stuff made (the peel and press stuff probably won't cut it). Check to see if someone local is a Domco or Nafco dealer.

Hope this helps.

Bob

 

[Al Pearson]

Has anyone used the new Dri-core subfloor type product?

 

[Andrew Stoakley]

Hello all,

This is my first post to this forum but I have been a long time reader and was just too lazy to sign up. Anyway, in regards to Al’s question about the Dri-Core product and if anyone had used it, yes, I used it in my home theatre project and it was an excellent decision on my part.

My home theatre is about 18ft x 10ft and is located in the basement of my town home. The previous owner had just slapped down some crappy carpet on top of some crappy carpet pad and it never provided the warmth of moisture flow that a basement in a climate of Toronto’s requires. Winters cold, springs damp, summers soaking and falls crisp! The Dri-Core comes in 2ft x 2ft panels and is basically installed like floating laminate flooring. Once the product was installed it provided the following benefits:

1. A raised floor temperature of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius.
2. A level surface to add what you would like. It made installing my riser a lot easier than doing it on uneven concrete
3. No moisture or water problems. Due to the rubber nipple system on the bottom of the panel, water and or moisture is allowed to flow and evaporate without being soaked into absorbent material like carpet pad or carpeting.
Big bass increase. My floor rumbles now and sounds smoother as opposed to the hard edge caused by the concrete.

Some items you will need to help install:

1. A table saw and circular saw will save you time and angst!
2. Lots and lots of Dri-Core leveling squares. Make sure your floor is level because if not, your floor will wobble when you walk on it
3. Music and Beer!!

Anyway, just wanted to say this was an excellent product to use and has increased the enjoyment of our theatre by creating a warmer and drier viewing environment. I look forward to chatting more with people in this forum. Installation time was about a 3-beer project!

Cheers,
Andrew