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I want to finish a 12'x36' part of my basement. The trouble I am having is that it is sloped to a floor drain. I was told that DRIcore and shims would work but the drain is a 2" slope down from the ends and that is way too much to shim. I do have a French drain system going around the exterior walls that drains to this drain so I need to find a way to bring up the floor and not affect the drain. The next trouble is that the floor is painted and I can't seem to remove the paint. Chemicals don't seem to work and a floor grinder didn't either.

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For the second part of your question - is it surface painted, or does the colour go all the way through the concrete. If it is surface painted, a grinder or solvent will remove it. – Rory Alsop Jun 14 '12 at 7:56
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Do you want to use the drain (or is it building standard in your area to always have this drain working?) - I would answer just screte is with new concrete(but blocking the drain could have regional affects and my answer might be severely incorrect) – ppumkin Jun 14 '12 at 8:51
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@RoryAlsop It could also be stained or acid tinted, in which case this color will likely never come out. – maple_shaft Jun 14 '12 at 11:19
With the paint the surface is defiantly painted. I rented a concrete grinder and it did take off some of the paint but the finish has to much of a waive to it so it was only getting the top part and I burned up all of the disk that I had. It left it so you could see that it was just paint on top. I also tried a solvent but it just took off a slimy top layer. There was still some color on the cocrete. – Adam Jun 14 '12 at 15:17
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why do you say shims will not work? are you planning to put down sleepers? (2x4 or such laying on floor to work like floor joists) and is ceiling low so you are trying to preserve headspace? Google "shim sleeper floor" and you should see some photos to explain best way to level floor. This will work for 2" slope and is commonly done, but you lose the 2" from the slope, and the height of the sleepers, and the thickness of the floor. – tabun tadashii Aug 13 '12 at 9:22
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I am currently finishing a basement and it almost seems like you are describing mine! Slope, dimensions, and all.

If money is no object then have this section leveled. Easy as that. Will it drain properly. No.

But if you are working on a budget and want it to look nice then you need to look at what options fit. So ceramic flooring is out. Hardwoods, even floating, is out. So either carpet the floor or put down some rubber backed laminate (completely waterproof). We are doing a combo of the waterproof laminate (they sell it in-stock at HD - Lowe's doesn't have it) and carpet in mine. The waterproof laminate comes in like 30 different patterns, looks nice and costs about $3 a sq/f. If your basement has potentially a lot of water issues I would go with the laminate.

Also a note on laminates... Water-resistant is not waterproof. I let the HD stuff sit in a bucket of water and it didn't change for three days. I also got some water-resistant samples (and even some cork-backed "water-proof") samples. All of the others were mushy or expanded a lot after three days. I have to think what would happen if I went on vacation and water got in. Make sure the water-proof stuff is made out of pure "rubber".

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