So no tile or wood over the flooring?

The beauty of diy is you're the final quality check. you decide how much effort you want to put into meeting industry standards for any part of your home construction. Everything is doable with research, learning, practice and effort. Some people are better at picking things up. But you can accomplish most things yourself. With the leveling systems you can even do large format tile.

If you want info on a certain skill, try YT first.

You can get some really great quality American made Engineered Plank flooring for under $9 per SQ FT if you do your research!

I think it's possible to do polished or stained and sealed slabs for less than $10 but agree professional jobs can cost a bit more. The options for concrete sealing systems can be overwhelming. Search for decorative concrete finishers in your area and get some bids. One of the biggest costs for stained and sealed jobs is the cleanup so spending money on floor protection early in construction could be good investment. If polishing, not so much.

Agree that doing radiant heating in a home with AC needs is questionable economically.

To have finished concrete as the "finished floor" you need to have the concrete professionals on board BEFORE you pour the concrete. You need to tell them the specifications (or at least the FINAL appearance) of the floor BEFORE they pour your foundation. You will either CONTRACT the slab guys to do the overlay AT THE TIME they pour or you have to deal with this issue AFTER the house has been finished.

A poured concrete slab is NOT the type of concrete that "gets finished". Of course you can leave it raw and live with it...that's always an option but if you aren't looking for rough gritty floors with humps and bumps all over it, then you will need to add the right type of microtopping after all the building stuff has been done.

And that's where the costs come in. A finished concrete floor can be "hell on earth" or it can be magnificent. And it all comes down to how much you spend on the floor. Finished concrete floors are not cheap. In fact they can be some of the most expensive stuff we have. They are referred to as a "lifestyle" floor rather than an economic floor.

A low-budget concrete floor can be as cheap as $5/sf. That's the level of "garage paint" from home depot. Or a finished concrete floor can be as expensive as $25/sf. It is one of the few products that REALLY gives you what you pay for.

If you want to do DIY level flooring, then you get to grind down all the rough spots and fill all the low spots and then let them cure. And don't forget to put in your expansion cuts. Your slab will look like a floor covered in large 5ft x 5ft cement squares with cut "grout" lines all over the floor. You then have to figure out how to deal with the cuts (will you put in the metal inserts or not). They can REALLY grab dirt...let me tell you how much dirt they collect - like, WOW they are dirt collectors.

Anyway, you can then move on to cleaning the concrete to remove ALL the additives used to speed up the cure (imagine how long it REALLY takes to cure 10" of concrete...it isn't 90 days that's for sure...the additives speed up the process but they also contaminate the surface...whew). Once you get the slab "clean" you then get to lay down "something". You have to choose how MUCH you want the floors to stain, etch, amber, require maintenance, etc.

If you want the lowest priced product, you can go with a short term "polymer" (it is somewhere between a wax and a polish). This will offer 6 months of finish...but it will require reapplication every 6 months. And then every 5 years you need to strip the ENTIRE floor (yep...more grinding/buffing/scraping) and then you start all over again with the short term polish/finish.

You can have them waxed - see maintenance stuff above. Or you can use clear urethane. It will last for 5-10 years or so...but you MUST polish it every 6 months and again we are back to the high-maintenance requirements. And as always, all of these finishes stain, etch, scratch, scuff, etc.

You can paint the floors with garage paint. This should last a few years...then it will chip, etc to the point of needing a complete redo. That means, you guessed it, peeling all the paint off and trying again. More grinding/stripping/buffing etc. They won't stain or etch, but they won't look very nice for very long.

Then the highest level DIY stuff is a low-level epoxy. You will put down a couple of coats (do two...'cause you might as well do it right if you are going to do it). Hopefully, if your mixing is done properly and your "timing" is absolute perfection, you will get 10 years out of the DIY level epoxy. Even this product should set you back $7-$10/sf.

And then we get into the professional grade finishes - like the epoxys. Colours or stains can be sealed into place with clear epoxy...but this is best left to professionals. An entry level clear epoxy (professional grade) starts around $10/sf. If you want "pretty" with a pretty concrete (microtopping) and some acid stains or etching then the price climbs to $15/sf without blinking. The multicoloured stains (3+ colours) or the "theme paintings" will get you into the $20 range and up.

And just for fun, many people will cover up their finished concrete floors inside of 7 years. Yep. All that money, effort, sweat and tears for 7 years worth of flooring. And then you will want something else. And here comes the heart breaking news: IF you added a "finish" (see any of the above) you will need to have it ground OFF before adding anything like stone or tile or glue down hardwoods.

Whew! You have a lot of decisions to make before you pour the foundation slab. Please talk to as many concrete specialists as you can find within a 100 mile radius. Educate yourself to the point of being a DIY concrete "specialist". You will need to know your own strengths and your own weaknesses as well as your own expectations for your floor. And then you have to figure out if concrete will give you everything you are looking for in a floor.

SJ McCarthy, always nice to read your posts on wood floors and you certainly have given readers a lot to think about here. Some of the thoughts and numbers seem a bit extreme. Most of the slabs we have done, did not involve a decorative concrete pro from beginning, used multiple acid stains and were sealed for ~ $8 per foot, with most of the labor in cleaning. The sealer is the wild card and recommend solvent based acrylics as most affordable option to consider. Sealers are tough to generalize with variability of concrete and wear.

I think the best thing about DIY, is it still leaves the option of covering with another finish floor. Lots of options that don't require bonding to concrete with the very real PIA of stripping botched finishes.

The only required joints in concrete floors are control joints at 10'. Nice to hide those under interior walls when possible. We use two part polyurea specifically designed for control joints to fill them and eliminate cleaning concerns. Underneath the polyurea the cracks are generally sealed with polyurethane, as cracks in slabs can be major source of soil gas. This should be done on ALL slabs at grade regardless of flooring on top, unless the build incorporates passive house level details under slab. The polyureas come in variety of colors with gray and mocha brown blending well with most colors. It's a design choice but I would rather see a random joint at 10' spacing than well spaced 5' joints. Several of our slabs had cracks that did not follow the joints everywhere and being aware that this is a possibility can help with expectations and accepting a bit of character.

"Affordable" on the front end just means a lot more expense on the back end. In the end, cheap acrylic sealers will cost you 3x-4x what a good high solids epoxy will cost you. You'll have to empty the home and move out to strip off the peeling coating, only to do it all over again in another 5-7 years. Or once every 20-25 years.

You can and should pay more on the front end in order to pay less over time. For almost anything that you will own long term. Lots of things in life seem "expensive". Until you actually count the total lifecycle costs. Tile will always have the lowest lifecycle costs. If people get off of the "outdated" merry go round.

Agree that spending more upfront can be wise. The solvent based acrylics we use are from concrete supply stores, not off-the-shelf big box stores. Peeling indicates poor cleaning of the acid/dye residue. A good acrylic sealing job will fade and then the wear starts into the surface of the colored paste layer of concrete.

Always been wary of epoxies on new construction because of the high moisture content and I think they are not very common as a clear finish for acid stain floors. Now that good moisture testing is available, it could help alleviate the concerns for new and existing slabs. I might choose polyurethane before epoxy and been reading good things about polyaspartics but yet to try either.

Densifiers are used to seep into pours of the concrete (the spaces left behind when the water evaporated) leaving behind a silicon product that is more than a surface application (it seeps down into the concrete...not very far but far enough).

We have this on the showroom floor where I work. They scuff (but do not scratch). They still stain. They still loose their gloss when objects are dragged across them. But they can be polished up again.

Here's the write up of one such product: https://www.wrmeadows.com/en-ca/liqui-hard-canada/

Notice they say it "improves" resistance (but does not STOP) chemical intrusion (staining). It improves abrasion resistance (but does not stop it).

Once the densifier is applied, you may not be able to apply another permanent floor down over top (like tile....nothing will grab the top layer of the concrete). A floating floor would be one of the only ways you could add a different floor over top of this.

Just be aware of what you are signing up for when it comes to a permanent concrete finish. It has been my experience (6.5 years in the flooring industry) that concrete floors get "covered up" inside of 7 years.

As for my costs above...it should be noted that I'm in Canada...in a SUPER HOT market with VERY FEW high-level professionals. The minimum wage in my area is almost $13/hr. Many parts of Canada are going to reach $15/hr for someone to work at a Tim Hortons. As soon as you have a skill of any sort you start making $20 - $30/hr very quickly. Our plumbers/electricians bill out at $180/hr (Red Seal) which is MORE than a Family Doctor is allowed to bill the Canadian Health Care system. Makes you think about a 'trade' doesn't it?

Another consideration is that if you use in-floor radiant heat, the company pouring the floor and installing the PEX must know exactly what they are doing. You want very good insulation at the ground/earth level so that you aren't paying to radiate down and heat up the ground under the house. There are various methods used to suspend the PEX at the right level in the slab, and there are different PEX layouts that allow for zoning and other capabilities. Its not rocket science to install in-slab hyrdonic heat, but you need someone who understands the trade-offs and knows your priorities.

This type of heat works well and is very even because of the mass of the slab, but that also means it changes temperature slowly. In most applications you cannot use features like setback thermostats for daily use because it reacts too slowly. You can use a traditional boiler, but some folks just use a dual function tankless water heater to provide the hot water.

Bruce

The calculations for the loop placement and temperature have to factor in flooring type on the front end. You can’t pour a buikd and all of a sudden change flooring types. The system won’t work as designed. Once completed, you cannot change your mind either.

If you want wood? That has to go into the math and calculate it now. Vinyl? Carpet? (NO!) Tile? That’s the only surface that you can install over s concrete floor that won’t affect the heat transmission. But it won’t stick to a treated slab, either stained, sealed, or designed. If the floor is treated, all of that has to be ground off first. It’s beyond move out for 2 weeks. It’s clean forever for a month following that. Even if the contractor uses dust control.

I'm not so sure you would need to completely grind off a treated slab for tile. As long as the finish isn't peeling, mechanical scarifying is all that's called for with an uncoupling membrane like Shluter Ditra. I would involve a product rep if in doubt.

A floating floor could work with little prep, and as long as you have a proper amount of sub-slab insulation, differences in heat transmission would be hard to measure. With an efficient envelope, designers are trending towards lower temperature water. While it's certainly better to have a design before tubing placement, the appliance temperature can be tweaked depending on conditions.

In case OP or others finding this thread missed it, a [radiant floor thread[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/energy-heat-efficient-floors-over-radiant-in-slab-dsvw-vd~5618219?n=50) developed recently with some of these concerns and a contentious theme of floor surface temperature expectations in new, efficient homes. Lowering expectations for warm feet is advised.

Do you own a TCNA manual?

Nope. Is there wording that overrules manufacturer's guidelines?

It's just the industry standard bible for how everything should be done. It's only $35. Buy one. Read it. Don't speculate until that happens.

https://www.tcnatile.com/products-and-services/publications/218-english-publications/188-handbook.html