What to use to level floor?

[AndrewDouglasBird]

The front corners of my garage have sank down several inches, causing a large gap under the garage door on each side.

My original plan was to cut a wedge of wood to attach to the bottom of the door to fill the gap, but when I tried that today, I found out the block of wood hits the top of the door opening.

So now I've decided the only option is to fill the drop in where the sunken part is and taper it back to where it is flat. I didn't want to have a bump like this on the floor, but there isn't any other option.

What should I use as a filler? The thickest part will be around 2" thick. I've already made some wood forms around the area I want to fill, I just need to know what to pour in it.

Thanks.

 

[jhelrey]

Why do you have a brick curb?

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

It was put in by a previous owner to keep water out due to the gap under the door. The driveway slopes toward the garage, but even in heavy rain, there is never standing water.

 

[Deej-79]

Floor leveler at the big box stores. I've never done it in that heavy of a thickness, might want to do a couple layers. It also tends to set up fairly fast, another reason to do multiple layers

 

[slidehammer]

How big is the garage? Is it detached?

 

[Cyberbear]

Pouring patch material over old concrete can be unreliable, but cheaper than total replacement. There are several cement based products available that can be poured to level your slab. It's a common thing to do for home floors and I had it done in my bathroom and it turned out great.

 

[Deej-79]

Pouring patch material over old concrete can be unreliable, but cheaper than total replacement. There are several cement based products available that can be poured to level your slab. It's a common thing to do for home floors and I had it done in my bathroom and it turned out great.

Proper prep of the existing material will help.

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

To be clear, I don't want to level the whole floor, I only want to raise a small section (12" x 24" or so) where the garage door will sit. The edges will taper down to nothing where it meets the part of the floor that hasn't sunk.

Green is where the garage door sits, red is where I want to fill and raise. The sloped part coming off the bricks will be removed creating a square edge. The opposite edge will be tapered to match the section just past the crack.

The corner where the white trim is will be about 2" deep, taper back and to the right to nothing where it will be even with the rest of the floor.

Make sense now?

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

Alright, so after doing some more research, I think I am just going to bite the bullet and fill the entire sunken area with a floor leveler. This one has great reviews, and with gravel added, can fill up to 5", yet still feather edge out:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rapid-Set-50-lb-CTS-Concrete-Leveler-186010050/204414391

I'll use a primer before hand to make sure it bonds well.

 

[Bondo]

It was put in by a previous owner to keep water out due to the gap under the door. The driveway slopes toward the garage, but even in heavy rain, there is never standing water.

Ayuh,.... Until ya fix the water issue, 'n pitch it away from the garage, yer just polishin' a turd,.....

 

[readhead]

Sounds like a good plan. Cut the wood trim so it isn't trapped in the new filler.

 

[drjcustis]

I've used the self leveling compound and like it if used correctly. The tapering to a feathered edge can be problematic. That edge will be weak and vulnerable to chipping. When that happens you'll be back in the same boat. It looks like there's a crack just a bit further back, can you not chisel out some of the concrete back to that point? Then you can fill in the entire corner. And, if you did that you could use the less expensive concrete mix and trowel it smooth. I do agree that if you don't fix the water issues, you'll continue to have problems (or as eloquently put, you'll be polishing a turd .


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[OldNeons]

Unless you are leaving soon, I'd cut out the floor and drive and do it right (fix the drainage and eliminate the curb while repairing cracked garage floor). You won't regret it (have you driven over that curb daily?). You WILL be upset when you are attempting to repair your temporary patch again in the near future. JMTC....

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

This is a rental. The floor and/or the driveway is not getting torn out. Besides, that's using a cannon to kill a mosquito.

There isn't a water problem. Once the garage door has a proper flat surface to seal against, there won't be an issue. I'll likely remove the bricks at that point as they currently do nothing. They were a poor band aid fix that didn't actually do anything.

 

[Kevin54]

I think this is a duplicate thread. You posted about this before and had a lot of responses as to what to do to fix it. evidently you weren't satisfied with answers in that thread? http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=320188

BTW...it's against Garage Journal rules to post duplicate threads, and just changing the title doesn't cut it.

 

[AndrewDouglasBird]

It's not a duplicate thread, it's a follow up thread. My first thread I decided to use a wedge on the bottom of the door. As I said at the beginning of this thread, that didn't work. In this thread, I'm asking what product to use, not how to fix it.

This forum is ridiculous at the amount of negative, counter productive comments that get posted. It's nuts!

 

[Handyfarmer]

take some rubber belting and screw it to the back of the door, following the contour of the floor, 3 or 4 inches wide.

there is some product called floor resurface which is a rich cement sand mixture that possibly could be used to build it up, (but layering concrete on concrete usually is not a successful venture,

get some one in with a concrete saw, and cut out the entrance part of the floor and replace,