Very good question.
A floating floor? Leave the concrete as-is? Paint the concrete or resin treat the concrete. I've been around this question a thousand times and yes, the profile is for a floating floor and I actually have all of the timber cut at 75 x 50mm (actual not nominal) such that I can frame the Xtratherm PIR insulation.
BUT
"Background"
The 5m x 4m slab is 100mm in depth and reinforced. Mike has already commented that I'm taking a risk here and I should have gone 25 - 50mm deeper.
I also used a "Big Blue float" too enthusiastically and the top mm of large areas de-laminated pretty early on (picture below) so it's far from a perfect finish. The remaining floated finish is hard to remove...
Hence the dilemma. I'm thinking a floating floor will spread any loads and might help protect the less than perfectly sized slab. It will cover up the concrete surface.
At odds with that is what might happen if the edges of the concrete absorb small amounts of water. Right now I guess it dries into the room but with a floating floor, there will no doubt be a real mess of mould etc if the floor absorbs any moisture.
Or with a bit more work I could screed it with a 50mm screed and reinforced with fibre glass pins but I feel that might just create more stress on the slab edge where the screed and dwarf wall meet but aren't bonded together.
So I don't know what to do!
- (405 KiB)