Cracked/Uneven Garage Floor

[meissen]

Hey all,

First post on the site - and I have to say this site's content is amazing. I have an oversized 2 car garage attached to my house that was both built in the mid 70's.

The problem is that back in those days (heck maybe even today?) it was common practice to dig a hole in the middle of the garage before pouring the concrete slab and throwing all of the trash from building the house into the hole, then cementing over it. As such, I do have a crack or two, and I do have some concrete that has sunk about 2 inches.

Do you guys think it would be easy as doing some quikcrete pre-mix to level the sunken area and then go through the process of doing the floor? I haven't decided on VCT or epoxy, but either way I know I need the floor to be level. A few of my buddies think I have to have the slab completely cut out and re-poured.

 

[regguy1]

I see you're in MI.......Mid '70's..........
I'd dig the floor up, maybe Jimmy Hoffa is down there


Seriously, You're probably better off having it re poured, you could make sure it's thick enough if you're putting in a lift.

Maybe rent a jackhammer and break it up yourself and save some $ ??

 

[meissen]

LOL oh don't say that - every time they think Hoffa is buried somewhere in MI the FBI tears the place apart digging for him!

Thanks for the tip on renting the jackhammer, didn't think about that. I admittedly would LOVE to do a lift and that was going to be a subsequent thread elsewhere since I have a 2 car garage door and wanted to know how the lifts work storing a car on the lift and having the garage door open. I fear I don't have enough height but then again I'm only storing a '95 Camaro and an '02 Firebird (both of which aren't too tall).

I can see that the concrete slab is a few inches thick at the very least. Attached are some pictures of the cracks and sinkage.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Repour. That slab is probably going to sink/shift some more.

 

[RaceDeck1]

You could just use some leveling concrete and then install modular flooring over it. RACEDECK is ideal for this

 

[meissen]

I absolutely love the idea of RaceDeck but at $1500+, it's way out of my price range.

 

[Jack Olsen]

My slab was worse than yours -- poured in 1925, lots of seismic nonsense in the intervening 85 years. If I wanted it perfect, I would have torn it out and poured a clean, new slab. But my budget was <$500, so I made it as level as I could with vinyl patching cement and put in ceramic tiles. Lots of work, but it's held up great. If you look carefully (under those cabinets in the back), you can still see the undulations in the slab. But I got rid of the big cliffs.

 

[midnightcruise]

Jack, does the tile hold up under floor jacks and jack stands? Is there a tile that will?

 

[meissen]

Thanks for the info, Jack! I've only been on the site browsing it for a few days but I've definitely come to recognize your name, awesome garage, and willingness to offer advice. Much appreciated!

I too am curious about the tile - my fiance's dad owns a tile installation company so I can get tile and granite dirt cheap (we tiled our kitchen and utility room and got granite counter tops for $300 total, including the granite's sink hole being custom cut on site). I'd be most afraid of the grout breaking down from the jack's wheels.

 

[Zengineer]

I would expect that VCT should survive better on an uneven floor than ceramic. (bend instead of break) VCT is brittle, but will bend a little bit... if Jack managed to get away with leveling compound and ceramic, I would think leveling compound and VCT should be a snap.

With that said, I rented a jackhammer (60lb one, don't go smaller) and did my 1.5 garage slab in about 5 hours. Very hard work, but it doesn't take long to break up. Moving the pieces afterwards it more troublesome.

 

[036.6turbo]

I used a company called "Trip Toe Concrete leveling". They come out drill several 2" holes in the slab, then pump some sort of mixture of sand, water, concrete, under the slab. This rasies the slab back up, then they fill the holes. They did quite a few of my slabs, $375.00. Warrentied, if it settles again, they will redo it free. Mine have stayed put, for (3) years now.

My dad clls the process "mud jacking".

 

[meissen]

Wow - no kidding. That sounds amazing... I'll have to look into that, thanks!

 

[RaceDeck1]

Hi
If you find that repairing and recoatin get to involved and/or very expsensive...we may have some overrunn color lots of RaceDeck that would be available at a great discount. What we have in stock changes daily ( if we have any ). If interested , drop Jenn a line at RaceDeck [email protected] and she can check for you.