ScaldedDog
Well-known member
After stalling and over-thinking for a long time, I'm finally hoping to get my tile floor done this winter. Before I do that though, I have a couple of drain issues that I'd like to fix as part of this project, and I need the forum's help. The garage is a 450sf 2-car and a 1000sf 3-car/shop, connected by a 40sf hallway.
The issue in the 2-car is that the lowest point is right in front of the man door in the photo below:
When a snowy car pulls in at night, there's a 3/8" to 1/2" puddle in front of that door in the morning.
Option 1 to fix it would be to mud the entire low area to reestablish the normal slope, sort of like this:
This would create an "edge" at the door, and mean that after tiling, the distance between the apron and the top of the tile would be much larger on one side of the garage than the other. I wouldn't be able to use a premade aluminum "ramp" at the tile edge.
Option 2 is to only raise the area in front of the door with mud, and create a roughly 1' ramp down to the floor, something like this:
This would channel the water toward the door, and seems somewhat easier to do than Option 1. You'll see in a later photo that there's already a similar ramp from the hallway to the 3-car, though it was placed that way from the beginning. My questions to those of you who've done something like this:
1) Do you agree Option 2 makes the most sense?
2) What products would I use to to fill in the low spot, and to build the ramp? I assume a plain ol' self leveling concrete would work for the fill, but what's the best choice to build the ramp?
3) Once complete, could this area be left untiled for weeks - maybe lots of weeks - without damaging it? In other words, are these sorts of repairs robust enough to "be the floor" for awhile?
The second problem I'd like to fix is in the 3-car side, whose floor is nominally flat. When I park my snowy daily driver on the right, all the melted snow ends up in front of the lift in the middle bay, like this:
I think my only option here is to fill in the low area in front of the lift so it is the same height as the right bay. The water from the car still has to go somewhere, so I'll probably end up with a ribbed parking mat to trap it. I'd use the same material here that I use to raise the floor in the other garage, correct? Can you think of any better ideas?
I appreciate any help you guys can be on this!
Mark
The issue in the 2-car is that the lowest point is right in front of the man door in the photo below:
When a snowy car pulls in at night, there's a 3/8" to 1/2" puddle in front of that door in the morning.
Option 1 to fix it would be to mud the entire low area to reestablish the normal slope, sort of like this:
This would create an "edge" at the door, and mean that after tiling, the distance between the apron and the top of the tile would be much larger on one side of the garage than the other. I wouldn't be able to use a premade aluminum "ramp" at the tile edge.
Option 2 is to only raise the area in front of the door with mud, and create a roughly 1' ramp down to the floor, something like this:
This would channel the water toward the door, and seems somewhat easier to do than Option 1. You'll see in a later photo that there's already a similar ramp from the hallway to the 3-car, though it was placed that way from the beginning. My questions to those of you who've done something like this:
1) Do you agree Option 2 makes the most sense?
2) What products would I use to to fill in the low spot, and to build the ramp? I assume a plain ol' self leveling concrete would work for the fill, but what's the best choice to build the ramp?
3) Once complete, could this area be left untiled for weeks - maybe lots of weeks - without damaging it? In other words, are these sorts of repairs robust enough to "be the floor" for awhile?
The second problem I'd like to fix is in the 3-car side, whose floor is nominally flat. When I park my snowy daily driver on the right, all the melted snow ends up in front of the lift in the middle bay, like this:
I think my only option here is to fill in the low area in front of the lift so it is the same height as the right bay. The water from the car still has to go somewhere, so I'll probably end up with a ribbed parking mat to trap it. I'd use the same material here that I use to raise the floor in the other garage, correct? Can you think of any better ideas?
I appreciate any help you guys can be on this!
Mark
Same goes for the front threshold tiles too. 
