Best waterproof floor over concrete + cat pee question!

[soe]

Hi all!

So one of my cats has been having issues and he started peeing on the carpet in the living room. We'd always planned to rip it out (it had just been installed when we bought the house last year) because we have 4 cats and 3 dogs.

Anyway, I've ripped up the carpet (it's concrete slab foundation so that's my subfloor) and the cat pee has soaked into the concrete in a couple of places (not to mention the carpet tacks, but those are history now!).

I would love to put ceramic planks in there but it's going to have to be a DIY job so I am leaning towards LVP/EVP.

1. Once the cat pee is removed, would you seal the concrete before installing the new floor?

2. Recommendations for a good LVP/EVP plank that won't break the bank and that we can do ourselves (we're pretty handy and I think most of these floors are made to be pretty easy.) I'm thinking under ~$3/ft sq. The room is ~347 ft sq and I have a couple of bedrooms I'd probably do too. We live in a small town so have access to Lowes, Home Depot, a Lumber Liquidators,but nothing fancy. Can always order online though.

Keeping in mind I have 3 large dogs, the floor needs to hold up reasonably well against scratches - they're murder on engineered hardwood - and I don't know if not having the carpet means the cat will stop peeing there so the flooring needs to be able to handle some cat pee without letting any through the joints (?), and it also needs to not absorb the odor.

I am open to any and all suggestions you might have if you think there's a better option

Thank you!

 

[DarisMulkin]

Paint the floor with Kilz not the latex kind to kill the oder. Unless it will interfere with whatever you will be putting down, you might ask the manufacturer of the product.

 

[highup]

Concrete emits moisture unless there is a vapor barrier under the concrete. Carpet and pad can breath, meaning that moisture coming out of the concrete usually evaporates so you can't tell that there was ever an issue.
Once covered with a non breathable surface concrete will still emit moisture, but there is no place for it to evaporate. Like Daris said. Don't seal the concrete with anything until you decide on a floor covering.
If you want a "floating" type floor, be aware that the floor must be extremely flat. Even for a glue down LVP the floor needs to be pretty flat.

 

[soe]

Thanks to you both.

I found a local store that sells COREtec and placed an order for their Plus XL Vinyl Plank - a 9" x 72" plank. They were having a 25th anniversary sale with 25% off so it came to $4.94 sq ft instead of $6.59. I'll let ya'll know how it works out! When I do the bedrooms I think I'll go with something a little less expensive though!

 

[Ernesto]

I'd use the Kilz like Daris said. I've gone over many a pee'd floor with Kilz. Plus you need 6 mil plastic under it if it's a slab.