DMX 1-Step Review - DMX 1-Step Underlayment vs. Dricore Subfloor

hi there steve and dwight again from dmx um one of the things that we were hoping to be able to do in this particular video is to do a head-to-head comparison uh with a product that i'm sure you've seen a lot of when you go into these big box stores uh looking for something to lay under your flooring when we came up with dmx one step we evaluated all the different products that were in the market we looked at what they did well and we also looked at where there might be problems with some of the offerings that they have and we endeavored to design a product that was the absolute best in the market it overcame all the deficiencies of all the competitive products and at the same time exceeding what the other products did well so we are now going to begin a series where we do a one-on-one comparison for your sake so that when you go out into the market and you're looking for different products to lay under your finish floors you'll have a chance to think about some of the stuff that we talk about in this video and if you accept it that is fabulous if you don't that is that is fine as well we're basing everything that we say on fact so uh you know we'll let you be the judge of it let's start with one of the more common products that's in the market is this product and i'm sure you recognize this this is called dry core and there's a lot of things that this product does really well so let's talk about that first do i this product when it's laid down on the floor creates an air gap between the finished floors and the concrete slab correct yes that's correct okay and what's good about what what what's good about that well with an air cap what that allows is that any vapor moisture that comes through the slab can dissipate into that air space okay and what what the uh what the intent is is that with an air gap and if you have a vapor barrier then you stop the migration of moisture up into your finished floor right and allow it to ventilate along the along the perimeters okay okay so they've got a subfloor this osb subfloor that is glued to a dimpled membrane correct that's great and the dimple membrane has some kind of a design in there which is supposed to lift your finished floors off the concrete slab yes it's about a quarter inch so it allows the floors to breathe yes now when moisture evaporates from a concrete slab does it evaporate does it come out and immediately go horizontal or does it go all over the place it goes everywhere it goes every what it essentially does is vapor moisture fills the space right so it can go up it can go laterally you can go diagonally and go in every direction right now the way that these this company puts its products together is as they they follow the tongue and groove connection so if you don't mind getting me another sample from their dwight we can and we've got a rubber mallet here to try and knock it together as best as we can all right dwight when i look at this right the product has gone together tongue and groove i'm assuming the timing groove is there to allow the osb portion to expand correct yes because depending on humidity it'll expand and contract that's correct and the tone and groove because you're dealing with a small two by two panel has to be connected together otherwise they're independently moving all over the place at different rates and so forth so it's a locking mechanism to put the whole floor together okay okay fair enough but dwight when i look at this side of it we've got an open seam yes all right well i'm assuming well this product goes down this way right yes so it's going down with the wood facing up so you're putting your finished product over the top of this side right right okay so that means that this plastic and this open seam is where the moisture is evaporating that's correct okay but this is open that's correct the wood itself being that it's an organic material yeah as well as being a wood product yeah it will absorb moisture so wear this where this vapor retarder which is this dimple sheet or dimpled matrix is not continuous then vapor moisture will travel to the dryer side of the vapor barrier right which is the wood right the point i'm trying to make is if moisture is evaporating in all different sizes underneath right on this side that's correct we've got an open seam here yes so does that mean that there's a possibility that moisture could migrate into the wood yes so it's not a complete vapor seal no it's not so no matter what you try and do with this floor you're going to have open seams wherever you connect each panel to this correct exactly and once the moisture gets into the wood then it's likely going to be migrating to the top of the board right yes and it will also affect those joints by the fact that the wood expands the the fibers in the osb board as it expands will can delaminate okay and it gets larger and that can create humps at the seams in these warpage okay now okay so that's not a good thing it's not a good thing okay so if you've got flooring on the top of these panels and you've got moisture wicking in through these open seams right here yes and it comes into here chances are it gets into your finished floor too that's correct okay and if if this if this osb is warping then chances are it'll cause your finished floor to warm or is that or is that too far no a stretch no as this becomes uh the osb becomes more should i say saturated as it expands yeah it gives off that moisture to anything above it that is drier such as your laminates and engine or hardwoods and even your carpets and other types of floor finishes okay so when we evaluated this product right and we were looking to come out with our product dmx one step one of the key issues for us and i want the viewers to know this as well is that if you're gonna have a product that is gonna try and prevent moisture from getting to your finished floors then it's very very important that your seals be completely waterproof right that's correct and sealed i mean you can't have a product which is supposed to keep moisture away from your floors and then potentially has open seams that are made out of wood because you know what happens as soon as water touches wood water will wick into the wood you will have capillary suction won't you and the other the others the other aspect is that wood is an organic material yeah and you you get this moist you've given it a food source you give it moisture and the right temperature and this allows mold and mildew to grow into these areas okay so let me ask you a question is there any way to seal this when you're laying the floors can you seal can you put can you put something here that can seal it it's extremely difficult to do with this type of system because it's facing down it's facing down so once you've laid it down and connected it is very hard to put stuff underneath to see it exactly and even if you try to seal it from the top side yeah you're still allowing the moisture to get through the bottom right can still affect the performance of this the scene okay so when we look at this product we say the good thing that it does is it creates an air gap right it does the the potential challenge or the percent potential problem that this product has is the fact that it's got open seams yes right and if you've got open wooden seams now you're going to let moisture get to your finished floor so it essentially defeats the reason for putting a product such as this so let me tell you what we did with our product when we came up with dmx one step and we you know i'm just cutting these samples out into two by two sections just so it's easier to to manipulate when we put our products together right let's say you've got one roll that you're finishing here you've got another roll that's finishing next to it the way that our product goes together right is you put them down side by side what if you can press that down for me we have a vapor tape that we put down and firstly you go across the seam with the vapor tape okay so you can see we're going across the seam of the vapor tape and we're going to go across here again we've gone across it's holding the two pieces together and then we take this same acrylic based vapor tape which has a very high strong aggressive blue and put that right along the seam like this so it's completely totally sealed okay when you look underneath you can see the seam but because we've got the vapor tape on the other side that's completely waterproof it's totally sealed there's no way that this moisture is getting to your finished force so when we designed dmx one step we said we have to get away from this open seam design it's simply not gonna work i mean it's counterproductive if you're trying to prevent moisture from coming into your floors and you've got an open wooden seam the other difference that we got with our product is if you look at it here is we have a foam on this product and this product is an antibacterial phone now dwight can you help the viewers understand what we mean by antibacterial foam yeah there's a the foam itself is treated so that it will not support mold and mildew growth on the foam itself so you're not you're not the issue isn't if it gets a little damp uh will it support mold building no it won't okay if there's no food source here right and keep in mind that mold and mildew typically will grow in dark damp areas which is kind of the environment you're going to find underneath these floors whether you're laying dmx one step or whether you're laying the dry core product that's the kind of environment that you're going to have so the fact that our product mitigates the growth of mold on the phone should be a huge benefit over our competitor the second thing that we found was because this plastic this product here has a foam on it it makes no clicking sound it's very very quiet when you walk on it all right that is something that comes as a result of the phone because no floor regardless of how level they may think it is is ever going to be 100 level you're going to have little spots where your floor is going to click and clap because our product has foam it does not make any clicking sound if you're dealing with a product such as this that has a rigid plastic membrane you are going to have clicking sounds as you walk on you can't avoid it it is a rigid substrate you will get that the other thing i wanted to mention as an advantage to our product is in our videos in some of our previous videos we've talked to you about when you need an osb subfloor and when you don't if you are using floors that need to be nailed down you will require an osb subfloor like this all right so if you're gonna if you're looking to place carpet or hardwood floors on dmx one step you will require an osb subfloor but the market is going towards laminate floors and engineered floors which are floating floors you do not require an osb subfloor with a floating floor one of the other disadvantages we see with this product is because the plastic membrane is glued to this osb subfloor right you are committed to using this osb subfloor even when you don't need to you're also paying for this osb subfloor when you don't need to you're also losing in clear height which means when you lay this down dwayne how much are we talking about here about an inch of height yeah you're talking close to just about an inch right so if you don't need to be putting in osb subfloor you're sacrificing in clear height in your basement yes yes exactly right okay so when we come back to dnx one step you don't need to put an osb subfloor when you're using a floating floor so you're saving money on that you don't have to lose the clear height when you use dmx one step because you can put your laminate or floating floors directly on top of dmx one step let's talk about something else most basements are done in laminate or engineered floors right right correct is it true that the hardwood floor manufacturers do not warranty hardwood floor installations in basements uh when you're talking about natural strip hardwood systems yes and why is that that's because of the moisture gradient that happens meaning that humidity will fluctuate in the basement and it affects the wood right right so there is that possibility of moisture causing problems with hardwood floors with natural natural hardwood floors so most people when they're finishing up their basements are using the floating floors right yes i mean this carpet used of course but most of them are going to floating floors being laminate or engineered floors because they're easier to clean they're simple to lay down there's not a lot of dust for them right no and also because they're a floating system unlike a net like a strip natural wood floor which is fastened to the subfloor of the substrate it has it has less allowance for expansion contraction throughout the whole area and that becomes a real issue with heart with strip argument systems where the floating systems they can freely expand and contract as they need to so that's another advantage to that okay now let's talk about another advantage if you're going to use laminate floors or engineered floors there is an association called alpha alpha stands for the north american laminate floor association alpha has products that they certify and approve for various uses in flooring they actually have a standard and acceptable criteria and standard for underlying right right they do they have they actually wrote a standard whereby some various specific tests are are performed on either a laminate floor or the underlayments that are used and in that standard they they subject it to various tests to to show the properties because there are very specific things they're looking for so they do have a standard they do and it's a specific standard for underlayments yes and it is a fairly lengthy and comprehensive standard isn't it yes it it it tackles all of the major issues that you would expect from an underlayment that's supporting a laminate florida okay and dmx one step is certified by nalpha as an underlayment yes it is and that's that's an important feature because when you buy a laminate floor and then you put an underlayment underneath it if it's not a certified underlayment by an alpha then you do risk that if there are every any issues with that laminate floor related to the underlayment they could void your warranty on the laminate floor okay so is is this product approved by now no that is not a listed product as certified by alpha okay so one would think that if you've got a product like this that is used under laminates and engineered floors that you would look to get this certification correct yes if you if if the primary if the primary end uses laminates yes you would expect that they would go after that certification okay but our primary end use is not laminates we can this product can our product can be used under hardwood floors as long as you use the subfloor our product can be used under carpets our products can be used under laminates engineered floors in fact it can even be used under tiles if you want to put you know if you want to go through the trouble of putting down an osb floor on top of it what i'm saying is that we as a company are not limiting the uses that our viewers want no but we're simply putting out products that are properly tested properly certified right right and bringing it out to the market so that you as the viewer can make the decision it's ultimately your decision you don't have to choose our product you can choose whatever you'd like to choose all i'm simply saying to you is that coming into the market and competing requires you to have a better product than your competitors your product needs to be able to do much more than the competitors do our product is the most tested and certified product of any of our competitors in the market let me give you another example dwight we have an iic rating don't we we do yes okay what does that to the viewer interested in sesame street language what does iic mean iic range its an impact insulation classification for the dissipation or absorption of impact sounds that would be produced by someone say walking on the floor or somebody dropped something on the floor like this exactly would this be an iic test that would be an iac okay so iic test means that and typically that's used for condominiums right it's used for apartment buildings usually it's it's it comes into play more with residential or even with office office spaces where you're trying to abate sound uh between those units where there's multiple right traffic going on right we've been tested for iic yes and we test very high for iic yeah i actually get a very good number you only have to have a and i i've seen to pass an alpha of 50 and we actually got 69. wow wow okay and none of these competitors have that kind of test result that we're aware of not that i'm aware of it not this one anyways no i've been to various other websites for direct competitors in the demo sheets and i don't see them having high ic ratings there's also an sdc rating which is similar to iic it is but it's more for uh what they call low frequency the low frequency sounds which are more of the talking sounds when i speaking okay and uh it's a little bit different test it's done but again it's for sound transmission through the floor assemblies fine and the requirement for alpha is it's still 50 and we actually came through with a 66. beautiful so we're well in excess of those test results we're well in excess of one now for regular oil and excess okay let's talk about another advantage that our product has and this is something that people said when dealing with this product here with this one here you need a bandsaw you need a jigsaw you need special tools if you're getting around corners if you're laying it into you know odd shapes you need to be able to cut this this product because of the fact that it is mostly wood with our product you can cut this product you can shape it you can go into any direction that you want and all you require is a utility knife again that was part of our design to make our product very user friendly very easy to use so that anybody can do it our product is a family it's like a family project if you're laying floors in your basements you can easily do this you don't need any special tools you don't need to be a handyman when it comes to cutting wood and shaping it and so on that's another huge advantage we have the third advantage not third i think it's like went to the seventh advantage here right sorry the other advantage that our product has and this is also really important ultimately at the end of the day is price okay if you're laying a floating floor and you do not require osb there is a significant price difference between dmx one step and this product over here our product retails for 80 cents a square foot our competitors product retails for a dollar fifty a square foot that's the lowest price that we've seen so far in the market that is a difference of 70 cents a square foot an average basement is about 500 square feet so if you were saving 70 cents a square foot to do your basement and it's 300 it's 500 square feet you'd be saving 350 dollars in doing your basement you could use that 350 to buy a new tv furniture you could upgrade your floors you could uh put new paintings in your basement what we're doing is we're leaving more money in your pocket and we're leaving more money in your pocket with a product that outperforms its competition in every category so what we've done is we based this video on fact we do not have an open seam like they do our product is about half the price as theirs dmx one step gives you the option of whether you need to use subfloor or not dmx has a phone which has a number of benefits one it's an antibacterial foam number two it's a very quiet sound absorbing comfortable floor to walk on our competition has hard plastic as their dimpled memory our product is the only product that you will find as far as underlayments are concerned in the big box stores or dimpled membranes for that matter to be more specific that is approved by the north american laminate floor association that's a big thing that requires a lot of extensive testing that our competitors have not done but we've done and passed and exceeded another huge advantage that we have is our warranty our warranty is a 50-year warranty our competitors is a 25-year warranty all right so when you put all of these benefits together and you look at our product and you look at this video and you can look at it again and you can go through it and compare it against anything that our competition is saying you will find that the only choice that you have for your underlayment is dmx one step

Channel: DMX Membranes Limited

Views: 133,127

Keywords: DMX 1-Step, Dricore, underlayment, subfloor

Id: VJTV6PXeyZk

Length: 24min 2sec (1442 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2013