09-07-2013, 05:21 AM
Yes & NO...lived in a house that was 1/2 on slab growing up in IL (solid clay soil) & now have a slab home here....The ground here is much, much, much more permeable than our IL clay soil homeland, so the water is wicked from the slab (my growing up home always had mustiness in the slab rooms & basement with concrete foundations) AS LONG AS YOU ARE ON A LOT THAT DRAINS... (had to add that, as there are some more swampy lots here)
OK, we are in that magic "bad" age...So far, so good (8years on the slab) The last house we had for a 1/4 century was an IL. 1 story ranch with a walkout basement....all oak floors - SOLID red & white oak- never wanted to redo those!... We always walked sans shoes on those floors ...as is the custom here.... we are covering our slab with porcelain tiles, though for the years before we bought it had carpet & that cushy roll flooring.... those floor coverings DID have problems -Can not stress enough how I do not think carpet is right for this side & the underside of the roll flooring showed that it did not breathe the water vapor...
LOOOVE the porcelain, but we spent time finding a tile that was not slick when wet (throwing water on tile samples in the store & then trying to slip on them was fun...esp. the sales staff faces...) had pretty much the colors of local dirt in the pattern....as I knew white would be a cleaning DISASTER here... (my feeling for the tile floors may also be swayed by the sea critters that appear within them ;~) Big plus is that the color & durability mean that I do not MIND shoes on the floor....
We also are not using wallboard in our main house, instead used smooth hardipanel cement board...(many reasons for that, but the main one was due to our aluminum framing) & the ohana was redone with the greenboard wallboard....did look at the fiberglass wallboard, but it was very heavy, itchy & not quite as smooth.... We have not found it totally practical to completely eliminate wood, but are being very stingy with putting it in the remodel...and really do try to make it bug/mold/mildew repellant...
OK, we are in that magic "bad" age...So far, so good (8years on the slab) The last house we had for a 1/4 century was an IL. 1 story ranch with a walkout basement....all oak floors - SOLID red & white oak- never wanted to redo those!... We always walked sans shoes on those floors ...as is the custom here.... we are covering our slab with porcelain tiles, though for the years before we bought it had carpet & that cushy roll flooring.... those floor coverings DID have problems -Can not stress enough how I do not think carpet is right for this side & the underside of the roll flooring showed that it did not breathe the water vapor...
LOOOVE the porcelain, but we spent time finding a tile that was not slick when wet (throwing water on tile samples in the store & then trying to slip on them was fun...esp. the sales staff faces...) had pretty much the colors of local dirt in the pattern....as I knew white would be a cleaning DISASTER here... (my feeling for the tile floors may also be swayed by the sea critters that appear within them ;~) Big plus is that the color & durability mean that I do not MIND shoes on the floor....
We also are not using wallboard in our main house, instead used smooth hardipanel cement board...(many reasons for that, but the main one was due to our aluminum framing) & the ohana was redone with the greenboard wallboard....did look at the fiberglass wallboard, but it was very heavy, itchy & not quite as smooth.... We have not found it totally practical to completely eliminate wood, but are being very stingy with putting it in the remodel...and really do try to make it bug/mold/mildew repellant...