What kind of flooring for crawl space that is easy to move on?

Question

what kind of flooring/mat/pad may be used on a section of the floor as a base for storing items and is also slippery enough to be able to glide/push/pull items on top of it?

Edits:

Crawl space floor is concrete, but not flat or level and slopes as one end is taller than the other.

The lowest height of the space is about 32” from floor to bottom of floor truss. Tallest height about 40”.

Open to both permanent and temporary solutions.

Part of the goal is to have the items off the concrete, the other part ease of moving it around in a constrained space.

Items would most likely be boxed or bagged, so a surface that would allow cardboard boxes, plastic bins, or sturdy plastic bags to be moved easily would be great. To put it another way, it’s much harder to lift and carry something standing on my knees, so the ability to push or pull an item easily, without damaging it on the uneven concrete, is desired

Answer 1

For temporary storage of items on a concrete floor in a crawl space, I'd suggest some cedar planks. After building our fence with cedar pickets, we have stacks of 18-24" cedar pickets, and use them any time we need to store items, particularly items that may be susceptible to water damage, on our garage floor.

A single 6' picket could be cut into 3 24" lengths. The lengths could be used individually for smaller items, or they could be ganged together to make a wider platform. IIRC, the pickets were 5-1/2" wide, so two widths would be 11", three would be 16-1/2" wide.

Use a piece of cheap 1x2 at each end to hold the pickets together into a "pallet". This will keep the pieces together and make a handle that will keep the boxes on from being pushed off, as well as being a good handle to pull with.

• They're thin at only about 1/2", so they won't take up much of your limited height.
• They're naturally rot resistant, so if water seeps through the concrete or you get some minor flooding, they'll still last a long time, and they'll protect the cardboard boxen on top.
• They are a bit grippy and may not slide quite as easily as desired, but, with the handle they should push or pull reasonably well.

Answer 2

Depending on unknown factors like "how not flat" and "how dry, or not?" cheap vinyl sheet flooring (commonly misnomered linoleum, even though 99.9% isn't that and hasn't been for decades) just laid in place (not even attempting a glue-down, if the surface is "not flat" to any degree)

Smooth, tough, cheap.

Won't do a thing for you if it floods.

If it's wet without flooding, will probably turn moldy on the underside.

Should work OK for a dry slab cover if the "not-flat" isn't so extreme that it breaks the sheet.

Answer 3

For a permanent solution to this, I would use one of the snap-together polymer-tile garage flooring products out there. These are fairly low profile, won't rot or mold, and have a drainage/air space under them to so that moisture doesn't get trapped; they are also relatively easy to install.

Answer 4

My son, who is an auto mechanic, poured a thin slab under his house and uses a “creeper” to slide around and access all his stuff.

Answer 5

If the floor is naturally dry I'd go with the vinyl flooring suggested in another answer. If you have moisture coming through the floor I suggest you do not use boxes or bags. Use only plastic bins. They should slide easily enough on the concrete. Once in place, elevate them off the floor onto makeshift feet so mold doesn't develop between the floor and the bins. The feet can be little bits of plastic or wood, like Legos or dominos or scrap wood. Just make them as small as possible so the floor can breathe.