In Which The Basement Gets Some New Flooring + Amdry LP Review: a flawed but invaluable product
This was written on the third of October, 2018. For timeline
tracking, it has been backdated to the day of flooring completion.
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You've seen the walls and carpet come out, now it's time for floor covering!
Flooring Choices
Generally speaking, most workshop floors are either vinyl, chip-epoxy, or bare concrete, with some wood working specific shops opting for some type of wood flooring, and some automotive shops using interlocking plastic tiles. For a garage or freestanding workshop, any one of these options has pros and cons, but all are perfectly valid and are a function of personal preference and budget. Basement workshops have a few more constraints, namely moisture control and water drainage during the occasional basement flood. A well designed basement slab will be sloped to a drain, making building a perfectly level floor a challenge. The easiest way is to use pressure treated lumber to fur out the floor and build a level subfloor, but this has the potential to trap moisture in the vapor barrier and grow mold if not properly vented. Between the furring itself, the OSB/Ply subfloor, and the final finish floor, chasing after a level floor can also eat up a lot of headroom.Since I'm hoping to be down in the basement workshop quite a bit, my goal was to make the space as nice of a place to be as possible. For me, that ruled out rolled vinyl or bare concrete. The lab where I previously worked had a chip-epoxy floor and apart from yellowing over time and marking tape not sticking, it just never looked or felt clean. It was also hard on your knees and feet so we had tons of anti-fatigue mats that mostly soaked up chemical spills and trapped dust. Chip-epoxy is out.
A long time ago, I saw a picture of a German workshop with beautiful wide plank light wood floors and I kind of fell in love with the look. Hardwood flooring in a basement is usually asking for trouble, so I turned to LVP (luxury vinyl plank) and engineered hardwood & bamboo to see what my options were. After a lot of looking and sampling and harassment by pushy sales people, I decided that the wear layer on LVP just wouldn't hold up, modern bamboo floors are too low quality to survive in a highly variable moisture environment, and engineered hardwood was too damn expensive for a workshop floor. Any of the options would also require a subfloor of some kind, which gave me an idea: I read about panelized subfloor systems in a home magazine and maybe I could use that as my workshop floor by itself.
These Canadian systems come in various thicknesses with or without insulation and with a top surface of OSB and an integrated moisture barrier with an air gap system to let the floor breathe and exchange moisture with the room. The idea is that these snap-together subfloor systems could replace the furring, insulating, moisture barrier, and subfloor steps for DIY basement remodelers. The first generation of dricore(the first to market brand) had a fatal flaw where the plastic barrier layer would actually trap water after a flood and rot the OSB from the inside out, but later generations seemed to have fixed the problem. As long as the water level stayed below the barrier layer, the OSB should remain dry and the floor would naturally be able to drain and dry due to the air gap.
I looked into my options and decided that despite the cost of >$2/sqft, it made a lot of sense for my situation. Moisture in the basement is going to be a continuous problem for me which makes the air gap and moisture barrier properties attractive. They also come in 2x4 or 2x2 panels, which means that I can install them myself without too much trouble. Trying to build a subfloor with T&G 4x8 sheets would've been a challenge, mostly because getting a full sheet into the basement is nearly impossible. The insulated panels would take away 1-3" of headroom I couldn't really spare, but the thinnest panels were only 3/4" and that seemed acceptable. In my research, I also considered airgap roll underlayments such as DMX 1-step, but those would've still required a subfloor layer and after I priced it out, didn't make sense.
I went with the Amdry LP 2x2 system because it had a much higher PSI rating than the dricore equivalent: this is due to the amdry panel being solid OSB with grooves cut into it, rather than the dricore's convoluted (as in textured) plastic layer. I slightly regret this decision as the Amdry product doesn't seem to be as polished as it could be. This next part will be a bit of a product and experience review, so skip to the next break if you aren't interested and just want to see more remodeling pictures.
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Amdry LP Review
Compare the two pictures:
Thankfully, the delivery dude helped me cut the banding and catch the cascade of panels as the left stack fell the rest of the way off the pallet. As you can imagine, even before we cut the banding, some of the panels were damaged in transit. To add insult to injury, we counted the panels and found out the load was 3 short. I called home depot to complain about the damaged and missing panels, but the panels were shipped directly and the Amdry offices on the east coast were closed for the day, so they told me to call back in the morning. Most of the panels were still in usable shape, so I decided that I didn't want to wait and started moving some of the panels into the basement. I will say, the 2x2 size was a godsend; even compared to the 2x4 standard Amdry panels, the 2x2 size made maneuvering through the house and down the narrow stairs a piece of cake. Sweaty cake, but cake nonetheless. The smaller panels did mean more trips, but they also meant my wife could help me move them without hurting her back (or my back for that matter).
For the most part, installation was actually as easy as the instructional videos. One of the differences between Amdry and Dricore products is that the former uses plastic connectors while the latter uses T&G to connect the individual panels. A common complaint with the dricore panels is that if either the tongue or groove is damaged, it won't fit together, rendering the panel useless without further machining. Additionally, the panels only fit together in certain orientations, leading to more waste when panels need to be cut (can't connect a tongue to a tongue). The plastic connector of the Amdry system sort of eliminates both issues. Each panel has grooves on all sides, eliminating the orientation problem and the plastic connector requires a little less precision to fit, allowing slightly damaged grooves to still accept the connector. But the design isn't without drawbacks. Amdry sells the connectors separately, so you have to figure out how many you need and it's an added cost over just the panels themselves. Furthermore, the connectors are 4' in length to work with the long side of the 2x4 size panels, but the connectors still need to be cut for the 2' segments and contrary to the instructions, you can't just cut them to 2' exactly. At any intersection, the wings of the barbs require the abutting connectors to be cut slightly shorter.
But, other than that, the install went pretty smoothly. I laid just under 600 sqft in under 3 days by myself including the funny corners. One thing to keep in mid with this specific panel system is that any cut will expose bare OSB and needs to be sealed. The manufacturer recommends a concrete sealer that comes in gallon pails, but you really only need a few ounces, even if you slather it on like I did.
before laying the panels, I applied a few coats of concrobium to the floor in an attempt to keep mold at bay. Concrobium is a industry standard water based sodium carbonate antimold spray. I gave it a week to dry before laying my first row of tiles: the last thing I want is to kick start the mold process myself.
By the end of day 1, this is what the basement looked like:
Just for reference, I laid the floor in the week the electrician was working on the knob and tube in the basement, so I was trying to keep out of his way and keep an eye on what he was doing at the same time I was laying the floor.
I don't have a picture of the the other half of the basement, but it looks pretty much the same.
I ended up overoreding by a lot because I used the dricore 30% overhead advisory when ordering. It turned out that the basement was a lot smaller than I thought and the orientation-less design of the Amdry panels really reduced wasteage. At the end, I only had 4 odd sized cut panels I didn't get a chance to use.
In all, this stuff is a godsend to a DIYer who doesn't want to deal with a full subfloor insulation and furring job to lay some LVP or carpet in a finished basement. I decided that I wasn't going to try and level the subfloor, but if you want a level floor, then the traditional approach would be better, assuming you can afford the headroom. Assuming the T&G issue with Dricore has been improved, I would likely try the dricore system if I had to do it again to save time and frustration dealing with the Amdry connector system.
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DIY Plank Flooring
From my research, the OSB of the tiles, even if painstakingly sealed, wouldn't wear particularly well. Additionally, they slippery bottoms would make the floor a little too active for my taste, so I decided to take another trick from the diy remodeler hat and make my own plywood floor planks. I ordered 20 sheets of 3/8" sheathing plywood and in an afternoon, my wife and I ripped them down into 11" "planks". I then laid them directly on top of the Amdry panels and nailed them in with a brad nailer. One thing to keep in mind is to be careful not to over penetrate and puncture the plastic layer on the panels. I decided to be lazy and not apply a finish to the floor. I may at some point clear coat it, but I like how it looks bare and it was a lot cheaper than engineered hardwood at $2.4/sqft.
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