LVP & sloped floor drains

[chemistk]

I'm planning on installing LVP in the basement of the house we just bought. Planks we're looking at are probably going to be 6.5mm thick, click lock installation. Haven't decided between "standard" width (4-6" width) or wide (>7"). I'm leaning towards planks with attached underlayment for ease of installation, but I haven't ruled out separate underlayment (that doesn't really play into this question). No hydrostatic pressure through the slab (did the sealed plastic sheet test in 4 areas, dry as a bone).

All this is to say that I should have a really easy installation. Except for the floor drain in the middle of the room:

This house was built in the 60's, and has 2 french drains connecting to the stormwater system of the borough. I have 3 floor drains, plus one more in the landing of the walkout door. In the late 90's, as a number of my neighbors told me, the borough sent out a series of notices to homeowners stating that if they had these drains in the basement, to seal them off. Why? The pace of new construction far exceeded the design capacity of the stormwater management system and flooding-level rains would cause water to back up into basements. They then wiped their hands of the responsibility.

2 of the 3 drains were properly sealed off with hydraulic concrete - but the third was not and hasn't been a problem. The borough wasn't playing either. Our neighbors moved into their house a couple years ago and within a week or two, we had near historic flooding in the area. He woke up to find water percolating out of the drain and a couple inches on the floor. Our basement was not affected despite this last drain not being sealed.

We have no sump pump and no need for one.

Okay back to the issue:

The drain slopes about 3/4" - 1" over 2 ft - too steep for LVP to go over it. So I need to do something. I keep thinking there must be a reason the PO let this one ride - we have no floor drains otherwise. My plan is to create "channels" with 1/2" pipe and pour self leveling concrete into the bowl around the drain, so that I can lay LVP over it but still have a means for water to drain if it ever gets in.

Does this make sense? Is it worth it to worry about the drain, or should I just seal it and pour the SLC into the bowl and call it a day?

Is there a different approach? We really don't want carpet down here (I already ripped out a bunch of old carpet), and this area is otherwise completely finished so I can't leave it as concrete either.

[fishnfool]

LVP needs a level surface. So yes, you will need to probably seal drain and spread out a leveling compound. But you say you just bought this house, so your going by someone else's word that it never get water in the basement. I would want to be sure of that before moving forward with this project.

This is a good product for LVP with or without underlayment pre attached.  https://www.lowes.com/pd/SMARTCORE-Soft-and-Sound-100-sq-ft-Premium-1-5-mm-Flooring-Underlayment/1000666103?cm_mmc=shp-_-c-_-prd-_-flr-_-bing-_-pla-_-245-_-1000666103-_-0&kpid&placeholder=null&gclid=52a65ec548911a7ad1d13fe5d881e7da&gclsrc=3p.ds&ds_rl=1286981&msclkid=52a65ec548911a7ad1d13fe5d881e7da

If it were my basement, I would be leaning more towards ceramic tile and keep the drain. They have some nice tile that looks like wood plank.

[chemistk]

I'm fairly confident that we've never had water because the basement is finished with wood paneling (well, the fake stuff ) installed back around 1980, and there is no water staining or bubbling at the edges. If we were to get another heavy rain, the drain wouldn't really make a difference anyway so the flooring would be coming up and replaced by insurance regardless.

As for tile, I did consider it, but this is primarily going to be a kids' playroom (at least for the next couple years) and I'd rather have to extract a floating plank here and there when they damage it than try and repair damaged tile.

[chemistk]

Just updating this - I ended up pouring self-leveling concrete to fill the slope, but I preserved the drain. Found a plastic bucket whose base was exactly the diameter of the drain, wrapped it with tape to create a real snug fit, then filled with water to seat it. I found just about the exact diameter of the slope - it was probably close to 6ft, but off center slightly. Average slope was about 1" over 3ft to the drain, so definitely not good for LVP.

That entire bowl took just about the whole 50lb bag of SLC, with just a small amount left over. Waited until it was nearly cured and pulled the bucket out successfully - will be making a custom insert with wood&PVC for that.

Way I see it, this drain hasn't been an issue for years but I still get to 'keep' it in case there are ever issues. No more slope means I'd have to push water to the drain but I can always carve out a couple channels if we were to get water into the basement.

We're going to wait a few months before we put LVP in - we got a bunch of outdoor rugs for now, and we can really think about what floors we want to go with. But at least the surface will be good to go.