Flooring for Wet Basements

If you are looking for flooring for wet basements you are a bit out of luck. There is really no such thing. The universal flooring for wet basements is poured concrete. If you know you live in a wet area and know that your basement could flood during a hurricane or a heavy rain then don’t paint that floor or treat it in any way. It is just a waste of money. 

The best type of flooring for wet basements is poured concrete that is appropriately slope towards a center drain in your floor. This slope should be about one half on an inch for every twelve feet the water must travel to reach the drain. In addition that drain should be clean and connected to a sump pump if necessary. 

There are some rubber and asphalt compounds that you can buy that are used as water sealants. However there would not be much point in putting these compounds on your floor. All it may do is prevent the water from saturating the concrete. However it takes several weeks for water to saturate concrete and the basement floor likely wouldn’t crumble unless there was something wrong with the foundation of the house in the first place. Hopefully you will have pumped all of the water out of your basement long before several weeks have passed. 

Most of the compounds that are labeled as being suitable for waterproofing your flooring are not really waterproof. They merely slow the absorption of water and are best suited for applying to the walls of your foundation rather than your house’s flooring.