Carpet Over Concrete Moisture

Choosing the right carpet.

Carpet over concrete moisture.

Installing carpet over a basement concrete cement floor can be a simple project and requires very few tools to accomplish. Concrete absorbs and retains water and the moisture can seep into the carpet padding and then into the carpet. Another part of the basement we have a vinyl floor product that interlocks without grout not sure if it was glued with no issues. Any kind of persistent moisture will allow mold to get a foothold and soon ruin carpet or wood flooring.

When checking concrete moisture the best solution to get readings of moisture deep in the slab is to use the astm f 2170 standard. The solution which you already alluded to would be to install 3 4 1 of eps over the slab held down with a subfloor tapconned to the slab. Plywood carpet pad and carpet as shown. However moisture levels can and do fluctuate over time so your sub floor moisture measurements may give you a false sense of security.

Carpeting over concrete floors can be a quick affordable and smart way to warm up a cool room reduce noise in your workplace and turn a bland and uninspiring space into somewhere warm and inviting. Moisture barriers as the name implies set up a protective barrier to block moisture from reaching the pad and the carpet. You then have two options depending on your circumstances. If excess moisture is present in a concrete slab when an impermeable surface treatment is installed it will become trapped under that covering.

For below grade slabs assume that the concrete floor will get damp at some point. Over time hydrostatic pressure will force that moisture upwards and can cause bubbles in surface treatments and cracks in covering materials that are installed above it. They look similar to carpet padding but they have a plastic film on the surface to block moisture. And both of the options use the same layers of 1 2 in.

The floor outside the bathroom walls is either carpet or bare concrete neither have moisture. This task can be simple but it does require planning patience and the right tools. 1 to prevent moisture migration up through concrete substrates located on and below grade and damage to installed floor coverings the concrete slab shall be protected from ground moisture and hydrostatic pressure by the use of an industry approved vapour retarder moisture barrier or waterproof membrane having a permeance of less than 0 3 perms 0 2 metric perms in accordance with astm e 96. With an insulating carpet above the slab the slab temperature can be low enough to create a mold problem at the deeper levels of the carpet.