We have taken up our carpet and am in the process of having tile installed.

In my opinion, your best bet is cheap ceramic tile with area rugs you can throw away if necessary. No matter how well you have repaired your leak, sump pumps fail, sewer drains back up, washer hoses fail, hot water heaters fail, they are ALWAYS damp, etc. Even metropolitan sewerage districts sometimes back into people's basements...just ask us Milwaukeeans! I installed ceramic in our basement years ago. Am I ever glad. All we needed for cleanup was a hose and squeegees to push the muck back into the floor drain and plastic rugs to throw out the area rugs in. My neighbors, well, their tasks were much more disgusting and difficult, not to mention costly. I installed our ceramic myself, and ahem, it is beautiful! It wasn't hard, just long, and hard on my knees. We have loved it ever since. And you can buy bound carpet remnants for next to nothing and change them on a whim if you like.

This may not be a clog problem at all. The house is 55 yrs old which tells me that the line in question may be an 1-1/2" cast iron drain line. In the mid to late 80's the appliance industry began using a higher volume pump in washing machines, which in turn prompted the plumbing industry to change the standard size of a laundry standpipe from 1-1/2" to 2". To the untrained eye this may appear as a minor change but in fact a 2" line has nearly twice the volume of an 1-1/2" line. 1-1/2" cross sectional area = 1.76sq.in 2" cross sectional area = 3.142cu.in. In the final analysis I think what you will find is that the size of the line itself may be marginal for the discharge rate of modern laundry appliances, which in itself would result in a minor backup as the machine pumps out. This problem is further complicated because the original pipe is most likely cast iron. While cast iron is a fantastic material for DWV piping it has one minor drawback. In its new state the interior walls of cast iron pipe are comparatively rough, which means a high coefficient of friction. This is further complicated by the fact that the pipe will rust slightly as it ages which in turn further increase the friction loss. This was further complicated by habitually cleaning tools and buckets and discharging the residue into the drain, which no doubt has by now caused a severe buildup of foreign matter in the pipe which cannot be removed even with a powered auger. At a minimum the line will need to be cleaned with a good heavy duty powered auger with the proper sized cutter head, and even that may prove to provide marginal relief. We are then left with two options as a permanent solution. 1. The preferred solution would be to replace the existing line with 2" PVC. An even better option would be to opt for the exception in the Plumbing code which allows us to increase a pipe diameter by one nominal trade size. Understanding that the code now requires a 2" line for a laundry standpipe, the option would then allow us to increase the line to 3". The second option is much simpler although sometimes less desirable. You could discontinue the use of the laundry standpipe and install a laundry sink beside your washing machine. You then discharge the washing machine into the sink. A laundry sink is only required to have a 1-1/2" trap and drain line. In this configuration the sink serves as a reservoir for the discharge from the washing machine, then the 1-1/2" drain line from the sink will meter the flow into the existing 1-1/2" drain line at the proper rate to insure good flow under gravity flow conditions without causing the lines to back up.

Overdue message but appreciate all the feedback. Ended up doing the entire floor, designed a "bar" area and constructed a built in dog crate. Like everything overall, probably could have been a bit more tame on the flooring but much better.