I’ve been looking for articles or guidance on how to best prep a basement room for a model railroad layout, but have yet to find anything. I have a walkout basement with cinder block walls with one area (25’x25’) that is unfinished that I’m turning into the “hobby room”. I’ve recently installed a sump pump, extra natural light flourescent tube lighting, and am having the cinder blocks cleaned, minor repairs made, primed and painted (today!). But the big question has become what to do about the fllooring. There is an old, thin indoor/outdoor carpet on the floor that needs to be replaced, but with what? The layout is currently planned for 10’x16’ (acquired an unfinished layout), so it will only take up half the room for now, and I’m hesitant to put carpeting in the one are (away from the layout location), that has had minor water leaks in the past the sump pump is supposed to deal with. Any ideas on the fllooring material for under/around the layout?
BobRi
I put the Colored 1/2" interlocking foam mats (designed for a Kids Play area) on my floor.
easy on the feet and easily picked up if needed.
I also have Industrial Carpet rems in the aisles in the less traveled areas where Operators do not have to stand for long periods of time!
These are also easily picked up if needed!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
I’ve seen various forms of interlocking floor mats used pretty effectively. They come in all sort of forms and colors, from ultilitarian to pretty high end. You can put those down in the aisles and don’t need them under the layout. Since they are water impermeable in most cases and aren’t solid, but usually some form of grid, if water dies come in, it’ll evaporate without consequence.
What’s the ceiling like?
Speaking from experience, having had a basement in my home in the southwest suburbs of Chicago for 38 years, the most critical issue in a basment is water penetration. You mentioned that the cinder block walls are being cleaned, primed, and painted today. My recommendation is to wait 30 days, then apply Drylox on the painted cinder block walls to “water proof” the exterior walls. Another recommendation is to add a back up sump pump in case of an electrical outage or a failed primary sump pump.
Mike asked about the basement ceiling. It wouldn’t hurt to add a false ceiling to limit the amount of dust falling on the layout. Unfinished basement ceilings are notorious for dumping dust and small debris on the layout. Don’t ask me how I know.
Regarding flooring, my recommedation is to avoid carpeting at all cost. All forms of carpet wick up water and other forms of moisture. If you want to cover the bare concrete floor, put down floor tiles.
Lastly, don’t put wood support legs directly on the concrete floor - - - just another way to wick up water and moisture. Rather, get some metal leg levelers with fiberglas feet for this purpose.
Rich
Avoid carpeting if at all possible – mold and mildew will turn out to be an extreme problem if it gets wet.
The interlocking rubber matting that comes in 2 foot squares, either multi-colored or plain black, is what I would use. We covered our large HO scale club layout concrete floor with the rubber matting and it definitely makes a difference in foot and leg comfort.
The matting would even be temporarily removable if need be because of flooding.
Thanks for the feedback!
Bob
My ceiling is currently open floor joists. Part of the “vision” is to insulate the sill plate and floor joists to make it warmer in the room in the winter (it’s gotten down to upper 40s in that room, and that was in a warmer winter!), and the insulation in the floor joists, covered by a slightly suspended ceiling, would help reduce noise as well. And as you pointed out, reduce the dust on the layout.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions!
Bob
I don’t know where you live, but temperature and humidity control would be worth looking into. Our basement has small windows, and we have an old air conditioner that fits in one of them. An AC is better than a dehumidifier in the summer, as it cools while a dehumidifier tends to heat the room because it’s not ventilated. Your train room may stay warm enough by itself in the winter, but you might think about wiring for extra heat or even plumbing to tie into your home’s heating system.
Think about power for your layout as well. This would be the time to run some outlets around the room if you don’t have them already. You’ll be wanting them for tools, too.
Hi,
I have not read the other replies so mine may be redundant…
First, it is most important to prep the room beforehand. Sealing the walls, floor, etc. will go a long way in making the room less prone to dust and give it a much better look.
Having lived up north (many years ago) with basements I realize the problem of seepage is always “on tap”. Putting down wall to wall carpet is a mess waiting to happen. So I would recommend one of two things…
Clean/seal the floor with Epoxy paint, and cover with throw rugs where you will be standing most of the time, or, installing floor tiles and cover with throw rugs as needed. Either way will keep any seepage damage to a minimum.
Oh, I would also set up 2x4 ringed risers under the layout to keep boxes and stuff off the ground.
ENJOY!
Are you sure that the walls have been seeping?
Depending on the climate where you live, condensation can form on uninsulated concrete walls.
The best waterproofing is applied by digging outside and apply to clean exterior wall below grade, and refilling of course.
Here in Ontario, basement walls in new construction must be insulated to either four feet below grade, or to the basement floor.
North of the Mason-Dixon line the same would be a good idea.
Dave
Another thing to note is that water in your basement may be telling you to look at your roof. The roof is a large collecting area for rain. Without gutters, that water all ends up along the outside walls of the house. If the ground is not graded away from the house, the water will settle in and may seep into the basement. With gutters, you still need to make sure that the water runs away from the house. Pay particular attention to places where parts of the roof join at an angle, as there will be a lot of water collected above and channeled down.
If you are going to heat that area in winter, you don’t need or want to insulate the floor joists. Something else must be wrong though if that room above gets that cold as the basement is mainly in contact with the earth unless the sides that are cinderblock are exposed as some are, in which case, that is where the insulation needs to be!
OK, sounds good about the ceiling. Rich was right, that’s where I was going with that question. Highly recommended to get this done before starting benchwork. It’s way easier that way.
Figuring out the ceiling leads to the next question, lighting. Overall room/work lighting is important. But after the layout starts getting scenery, etc, it’ll probably not be the best. You’ll want to adjust it, which tube lighting doesn’t do easily. So think LEDs, especially if the pruchase is a few years off. They’ll just get cheaper/better.
LEDs can work with track lighting. Another way is by using LED strip lighting. A lot of it comes as a “naked” strip that uses a transformer. This can work well. I’ve found another form that I like which looks a lot like a fat lamp cord, because it encloses the LED strip in a protective sheathing. It’s much easier to handle, move, and adjust. There’s more on how I used it about halfway down this page: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/213765.aspx?page=1
The reason I bring up LEDs is that having a somewhat lower ceiling makes them more effective. My ceiling is too low, but nothing much to do about that without raising the house. In any case, if you have a range of finished ceiling heights to consider, then accolunting for LEDs, downward protruding track lighting, and other things is the next step with planning for that.
Finish the entire room so you can use drywall as the backdrop.
If that’s too much, try to foam seal all tiny openings to keep as many spiders out as possible. Paint the floor or use some sort of covering that sweeps up nicely. Try to cover the ceiling so acumulated dust doesn’t fall off of the rafters.
Welcome to t he forums.
Something to consider is regardless what you put down on the layout room floor, you should seal the whole basement floor. When we built our house, it was recommended to seal all the floor to keep dust down. Cement dust floating around would get on the layout as well as the stuff falling from the ceiling. I haven’t got my ceiling up yet, still have a few things to get out of the room before that step.
Good luck,
Richard
It’a a walk out basement. Sounds like the doors are not well insulated. That might be one of the first things that needs an update is a good,insulated exterior door (if you have a casement, you can put an exterior door at the bottom with some kind of a drain to keep rainwater out. Another thing you can do is frame the whole basement in 2x4’s, put up a false wal of panellng, and put some insulatiotn in there.
Which brinds us back to water. You absolutely must deal with theis, and be prepared for it to come back. I had the contractor build a sump around the hose pentrations for the well an one of the window which leaks. This contains the water while a sump pump gets rid of it. If there is any chance that water can come in, do not install car
My basement has a very icky carpet in it now. This will be ripped out when I rip down the walls that divide it into 4 different rooms. As well as teh perimeter walls - it’s just ugly paneling over furring strips. Once I have everythign out, I plan to seal and paint the cinderblock walls, and use the Rustoleum basement epoxy product on the floor. Once the benchwork is up, I plan on using carpet tiles or the rubber mats in the aisles - no need to use them under the benchwork, really, but bare (or even epoxied) concrete is just too hard to stand on for hours on end, so the places peopel will walk adn stand will have some sort of covering liek the commercial carpet tiles.
I am very impatient but I really want to make sure I do all these things BEFORE starting on construction. I also am planning to redo the drop ceiling - just repalcing the tiles with fresh ones would amke a huge difference, but only one of the 4 parts has overhead lights in it, and the grid is dropped almost a foot lower than it needs to be to clear the joists, pipes, and wires, plus allow room to tilt in the panels. Not sure why the previous owner did that. Atleast I have plenty of head room - without the drop ceiling it has to be 10 feet to the bottom of the floor joists. The way the tiles are hung now, it’s about 8 feet to the drop celing - so there’s 2 feet more above the grid.
–Randy
Randy, I think the previous owner did the right thing with the dropped ceiling. It keeps the heat from all sitting up at the 10-foot ceiling level, leaving you and your feet to freeze down below. If you have a 10-foot ceiling you should have a fan to circulate the air.
Perhaps, but it was quite warm down there when I first saw this place at an open house, and it was still pretty chilly outside. It’s not 100% underground, only the back and right side wall are completely underground, the left side adjoins the garage, and the front, which faces south, is partially exposed. And they had the heat turned off, not just set to a low temperature. There’s a 3-zone hot water heat system installed, with the basement being its own zone. There’s even heat in the garage - I’ve had garages before but never one with heat in it! Cars should be VERY happy this winter.
I’m actually more concerned that I will need COOLING in the summer, even if I stick with flourescent main lighting and use all LEDs for the layout lighting to keep the heat down. The only practical way to add cooling would be to yse those two piece units - I suppose they can be used with the outside part higher than the inside part, because that’s how it would end up. The obvious, a wall unit in the wall between the basement and garage, is not allowed because that is a firewall.
–Randy
You could try a portable AC unit for some cooling although they are not high capacity. They use flexible duct to discharge warm air outside; also, you need a place to discharge condensate via a flexible tube.
Dante