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Rubber/vinyl of PVC Baseboard for a basement

PLIERS | Posted in General Questions on

Good afternoon, hope all is well. I insulated my basement walls with rigid foam furring strips and drywall. About to put in baseboard, I also have a small 6×9 room that the walls are unfinished and concrete. What would be a good baseboard material. I’m looking at pvc board or the flexible rubber/vinyl that is glued to wall. The rubber/vinyl materials I think would be a lot cheaper than pvc board and is more bendable. Any draw backs to either, I rather avoid wood near floor, I don’t have problem using wood above floor level.

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Replies

  1. Expert Member
    BILL WICHERS | | #1

    That "bendable rubber" stuff is known as "cove base". It'll work fine.

    A little trick for making corners: soften the material with a heat gun first, then clamp it between two flat things (like scrap pieces of 2x4) until it cools. This will let you make sharp inside and outside corners without having it bulge out. You need to trim a notch out of the flange on the bottom edge too.

    Bill

  2. PLIERS | | #2

    Thanks Bill, checked out video and saw notch you were talking about. Haven’t seen anyone use a heat gun. That is a good tip. Thickest version of this wall base is 1/8 but they all flange out on bottom. Anyone know how large of a gap it covers. I can’t find anything that lists how far bottom flanges out

    1. Expert Member
      BILL WICHERS | | #3

      The bottom flange is maybe 1/2" - 5/8" or so. The idea is to cover the edge of a tile floor, similar to what shoe moulding does with a wood baseboard. Visit a commercial office building -- if they don't have the carpet wrapped up the wall a little (which I don't like), chances are they are using cove base and you can get an idea what it looks like. The stuff is super common in commercial buildings, especially when any non-carpet floor covering is used.

      Bill

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