Floor slope and a lift

[JasonF]

I am building a 32x48 pole building with two overhead doors and plan on putting a lift in one of them. Anyways I was giving my builder the specs for the barn I am having built and he asked about were I wanted my floor drain in relation to my lift area? I would like to know the best way to still have a floor drain and still be able to intall the two post lift properly? I could just go without a drain but I do get a fair amount of snow melt off the snowmobiles in the wintertime so it is nice to have.
I did do a search as I have seen this topic before but none of my search terms returned any results.

 

[mikec35]

Are you going to park your snowmobiles where the lift is? If so then I would put the drain in between where the posts will go. I have a 32' wide garage and I have a drain about 6' in from the outside walls on both sides, one of the drains is centered between my lift posts.

 

[Blk88GT]

I had the same issue. My floor drain is within a foot of my lift post in the center of 2 bays. I have a third bay that is totally flat by design for doing chassis setups and trailer storage.

It made the lift install more challenging but it wasn't too bad.

 

[rsanter]

Seems to me like there are a couple of good ways to handle it.
Pour the footing for the lift first and then pour the floor around it at the slope you want and have them just do a nice transition to the lift footings

Pour the floor with the slope you want and then when you install the lift you can level the lift with shims or double bolt it and then grout under the lift for support

Pour the floor with holes where the lift footing will go and then pour the footings after that with a nice round over or transition to the floor

Bob

 

[JasonF]

The sleds could be parked near the lift but I'm leaning towards putting the drain in the middle front of the garage and the lift would be right of center towards the back.
I think I am leaning towards rsanter's idea number 2. I didn't know if shimming was best practice when installing but I like the idea of grouting to really solidify the post location.

If I was 100% confident of my future lift placement I would just leave the post locations on the level but as it stands I just cant commit. The plans so far it to pretty much thicken all the concrete in the bay were the lift is just to leave my options open.

 

[Aahz]

The best place for a drain in a garage is in front of the doors (horizontal) to them, approx. 12-18" inside. The normal slope of a garage should be 1/8" per foot towards the drain. You could get by with a bit less than that, but at 1/* per foot, you should not have any trouble with shims for the lifts. Do NOT put a drain in your working area under the lift or to either side of the lift! You will regret it as the floor slope will make the lift installation difficult (ie. 1/8" per foot (2" over 20') from front to back of the bay is barely noticeable, but when you start sloping to a drain over short distances, the angles get pretty steep and you WON'T be happy. Not to mention, who wants a drain to trip over in your work space?
Using 1/8" per foot, water should roll down the slope pretty well and if they do a nice job, you shouldn't have any puddling.

I remember a guy that DID put drains to the front of his lifts once. He had to block up his toolboxes to prevent them from rolling into the drain and at one point the drain clogged up and flooded his shop. He was NOT a happy camper and was really kicking himself for insisting that was what he wanted...