Basement without additional flooring / cleaning floor slab

Dear forum,

after two years of planning, our house construction has finally begun. Our basement is intended to house exclusively the laundry room, storage, pantry, and technical room. Not least for cost reasons, we are foregoing heating, insulation, and plastering or painting work here. However, we are currently wondering whether it was a mistake to forego screed and an additional floor covering there. Does anyone have experience with a basement where the bare floor slab forms the substrate? Can this concrete surface be wiped damp in everyday use and freed from coarse dirt?

Even pure screed on the BP would not make you (your wife) happy without sealing or tiles. I have it in an old part of my very old house. Very annoying, never really clean (to maintain) because concrete or screed sands. If you have the option, I would at least have the BP smoothed with a trowel. Then you can easily lay tiles yourself (directly on BP, or is there bitumen there?). It doesn’t have to be perfect, but with a height leveling system, it’s quite manageable for amateurs with patience. Screed itself is not that expensive either, you can do it or is the budget completely "drained"?

P.S. 70m² of cement screed cost me just under €1000 net a year ago

Thank you very much for the quick response! That was exactly my wife's concern, that the floor would gradually become sandy and you would always get into the upper floor with dirty shoes. The BP was smoothed in any case with a concrete distributor. (see photo).

Can tiles be laid directly on BP? How thick is a screed without an insulation layer? I am just wondering if there would then be a problem with the height (e.g. at the stairs)?

Plain concrete slab without screed and no plaster on the (interior) walls?

That will be …. rustic.

Have you ever seen raw concrete slabs? Pretty crooked and uneven. Ours was very, very wavy and had inclusions, bubbles, etc. In addition, the calcium silicate walls were standing on some kind of mat. You will see all that and forever. Besides, you also don’t have the insulation on which the screed is usually laid.

... the staircase is somehow calculated based on the reference heights defined by the clients. On the ground floor it will probably be the finished floor level, in the basement the raw base floor level?. If so, then either the staircase will still need to be adjusted (at least it should) if you decide on screed + tiles after all. Or you accept different riser heights (warning: tripping hazard).

Tiles can be laid in the pantry (I’ve done that before ;-) or glued. I’m not sure if directly on the base floor is possible, but what could happen? Your build-up height (and also your costs) depend on that. My recommendation: have screed done, the rest do gradually yourself...

The flooring expert of the forum is, I believe, enjoying a well-earned retirement (abroad on the beach? ;)). But maybe he’ll get bored sometime and want to say something about it? Fortunately, I have been out of the construction business for over 30 years and never knew everything anyway :confused:

Pure concrete slab without screed and no plaster on the (interior) walls? That will be... rustic. Have you ever seen raw concrete slabs? Pretty crooked and uneven. Ours was very, very wavy and had inclusions, bubbles, etc. In addition, the sand-lime brick walls stood on some kind of mat. You will see that all and forever. Also, you don't have the insulation on which the screed is usually laid.

That doesn't really bother us. We actually find the raw concrete quite visually exciting. Our slab is pretty smooth and we also don't have mats under our walls. It's actually only about the question of medium- to long-term cleaning.