Flooring for Concrete Slab Questions Answered

So you have a bare concrete slab. It is battleship gray, and even though it’s probably brand new, it’s still a distressing thing to look at, as there’s no life in it whatsoever. Thus you muse as to what flooring for concrete slab makes the most sense. There are a myriad of choices, that’s for sure.

First there is hardwood flooring for concrete slab. There are a plethora of hardwoods to choose from such as poplar, maple, cherry, oak, ash and birch. All of those are simply lovely, but the care that they will need probably is quite daunting, especially in a high traffic area. Besides, wood contains water, and it also sucks up water when one cleans it. It invites problems because of that, such as molds and bacteria, which eventually can cause terrible smells to emanate from a floor.

Then one might consider flooring for concrete slab made of vinyl, and if cushioning is a worry, vinyl even comes with cushioning. Vinyl causes its own problems too though. There is the adhesive that is used, some of which cause allergies. There is the fact that there are seams, and when you have seams, you can let in dirty water and cause the same problems that hardwood had. Vinyl installation might benefit from installations of a membrane. You’ll know what it is when you see it, for it is dimpled, usually a dull heavy duty gray color. Its purpose is to keep your floors dry and thus act as a vapor barrier. That raises the investment for you to use vinyl though, so keep that in mind.

Next you might consider placing tile. Now, tile requires grout, and unfortunately grout is not waterproof either. Ultimately there will be weathering on that grout, and eventually it will allow dirty water to introduce itself under the tile as well, and that’s due to the grout. This can lead to costly tile repairs without even receiving the full life of the new tile floor!

The very best flooring for concrete slab is of course Silikal. When you read about vapor barriers nothing but nothing does the work that Silikal does. The reason is because when Silikal is applied to a concrete slab it totally works its way inside the concrete, and then it makes a complete seal. Not even a pin prick will allow any water or wetness to penetrate Silikal.

That means too that no dirty water can infiltrate under Silikal either. It is a totally seamless floor surface. In addition the floor is completely safe, as it is an anti-skid floor. That’s important where there might be water on the floor, or other substances that might occasion a slip. The Silikal floor will “cure” or “harden” all within one hour of when it was laid. In addition, the floor will be quite simple to keep clean, no matter how messy those working on it tend to be.