Garage threshold lip

[AaronUrn]

Hi all - long time lurker - looking for advice on an issue I couldn't find much info on.

I have a regular townhome/2 car garage which has a recessed area around the garage door/ threshold - presumably for drainage. I've attached pics, you can see the flooring is unfinished in this area and the substrate is visible below.

The issue is - there is a vertical "lip" of about 2 inches - this is a right pain in the *** when driving into the garage! Our driveway is on an incline and you have to hit this "lip" with enough speed to get up the drive and into the garage smoothly.

Can anyone recommend any good solutions for this? I thought a cheap option may be to get a grinder and "bevel" this sharp edge? Possibly taping a straight line an inch back from the lip then grinding at an angle -might have to hire a pro as I don't think I could do a neat job!

I've also looked into all manner of threshold ramps/lips but didn't really get much joy, it was complicated finding something which would match the height of the lip, provide smooth ingress and have an approach angle which doesn't impede the garage door.

Any advice appreciated!

 

[Git]

Welcome to Garage Journal - but none of your photo's are being displayed. You can probably see them but at this point no one else can. Looks like you tried linking to a Google account. It's pretty easy to just attach photo's to your post using the 'Go Advanced' button

 

[AaronUrn]

Thank you for the heads-up! I've edited the OP and attached the images this time - hopefully will be showing now

 

[didit]

Without seeing the pic, I think mine was a similar situation. My new concrete driveway was elevated to increase the amount of fall from the threshold leaving the garage floor a few inches lower. I used a length of synthetic decking to split the difference in height, making entry much easier. Its been in place a few years now without any problems other than you have to be careful pulling/pushing things with smaller wheels over the strip and the obvious potential trip hazard for the unwary. I didn't bother but a gradual incline could easily be achieved with the same material. Its a very durable product.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

With a little skill you could use a product like our FiveTon to trowel-form a little transition ramp.


https://www.legacyindustrial.net/products/concrete-repair/fiveton-epoxy-patch-en.html


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[b-boy]

I've never seen anything like that. Did they raise the floor in the garage for some reason, and pour on top of an existing pad?

 

[Joemctag]

2” IS too much to drive up on smoothly. Easiest for you is to fasten a pressure-treated 2 x 4 down and maybe a 5/4 x 6 deck board ( 1” thick ) in front of it. You’ll be able to live with that. Steel plate or filling in a ramp with cementitious product cost more and maybe not DIY for you. Forget grinding. If you want to do the cement, try to get good information, use the right product, maybe embed 1/2” hardware cloth for reinforcing. Still can’t taper it down to nothing. Good luck. Looks like your slab was topped later on. They don’t build them with that much depth.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

I've never seen anything like that. Did they raise the floor in the garage for some reason, and pour on top of an existing pad?

Every new build in FL has that shelf.
I believe its to help keep water off the actual garage floor during our monsoon season.


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[AaronUrn]

Without seeing the pic, I think mine was a similar situation. My new concrete driveway was elevated to increase the amount of fall from the threshold leaving the garage floor a few inches lower. I used a length of synthetic decking to split the difference in height, making entry much easier. Its been in place a few years now without any problems other than you have to be careful pulling/pushing things with smaller wheels over the strip and the obvious potential trip hazard for the unwary. I didn't bother but a gradual incline could easily be achieved with the same material. Its a very durable product.

That's an interesting solution - how did you attach the decking to the floor? So is it a "stepped" entry?

With a little skill you could use a product like our FiveTon to trowel-form a little transition ramp.


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Interesting! I'll check that out - is FiveTon easily formable or would I have to really pack it tight to form a transition ramp?

I've never seen anything like that. Did they raise the floor in the garage for some reason, and pour on top of an existing pad?

I have no clue! The house is 20yrs old and we moved in recently. There's all kinds of weird quirks I'm discovering. I just installed a custom base molding (waterproof) to cover the unsightly stem wall (see pics above). Where the drywall sits on the stem wall was uneven all around the garage perimeter, both in terms of gap and how far the drywall protruded/recessed from the stem vertical plane. There were odd gaps and critters/rodents were getting into the house. I couldn't just buy a regular garage suitable molding as the stem wall ranged from 3" to over 9" in different parts (garage floor is on an incline too)! Can post pics of it up if anyone's interested; I plan to install new flooring (leaning towards swisstrax) and get this threshold lip sorted and I'll be happy

 

[didit]

I just cut the composite to fit so it is locked in place with nothing holding it down other than its own substantial weight. I just had this piece left over from a job, other wise I would have thought it out a little better and made a smoother transition but its working out OK for my needs.

 

[Armorpoxy]

We carry an Epoxy Mortar which is 2-3x stronger than concrete and could be made to make a ramp to ease entry into the garage.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

It’s easily troweled into transitions.
The more silica-sand added, the stiffer the mix.


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[Git]

I've never seen anything like that. Did they raise the floor in the garage for some reason, and pour on top of an existing pad?

That's kind of what it looks like - boy that edge is pretty rough, like they didn't even form it or it was a last minute after thought kind of thing. Like, hey, what do we do with all this extra concrete...

 

[dcg9381]

2" seriously? Wow.
The product recommendations are good ones. Alternately grinding it down...

 

[AaronUrn]

It’s easily troweled into transitions.
The more silica-sand added, the stiffer the mix.


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We carry an Epoxy Mortar which is 2-3x stronger than concrete and could be made to make a ramp to ease entry into the garage.

Thanks both - will check these options out

That's kind of what it looks like - boy that edge is pretty rough, like they didn't even form it or it was a last minute after thought kind of thing. Like, hey, what do we do with all this extra concrete...

2" seriously? Wow.
The product recommendations are good ones. Alternately grinding it down...

Right??? I've been looking at it wondering wtf were the builders thinking - is this normal!? It ranges between 1.5 and a shade under 2 inches in parts (so it's not even uniform).

I'm certain this is the original builder-grade finish from 20 years ago when it was built. This was our first house purchase and other features of the home took precedent over the garage. Nothing that can't be fixed though...

So general consensus seems to be to use a material to form a ramp vs grinding the edge?

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

That would be a ton of grinding.
You would have to make dado-cuts for the bulk of it, then fine tune with a diamond grinder.

 

[CJDave]

My neighbor used a angle grinder on the frost lip in his garage. He ground 3 spots just wider than his trailer tires to a angle/ramp shape so his boat trailer could be pushed into the garage by hand. I would guess he spent 15 hours doing so and that frost lip is only 3/4" tall. Grinding the lip in question here would take days. CJDave.

 

[59 wagon man]

been doing construction in fla for 20+ yrs and i've never seen anything that severe

 

[Dumber than lumber]

Without seeing the pic, I think mine was a similar situation. My new concrete driveway was elevated to increase the amount of fall from the threshold leaving the garage floor a few inches lower. I used a length of synthetic decking to split the difference in height, making entry much easier. Its been in place a few years now without any problems other than you have to be careful pulling/pushing things with smaller wheels over the strip and the obvious potential trip hazard for the unwary. I didn't bother but a gradual incline could easily be achieved with the same material. Its a very durable product.

To the OP - i think that idea about synthetic deck is a really good solution. You can bolt it down or use construction adhesives. You can also run a bevel on the edge.
Solves trip hazard at same time.
And you could possibly step the gap with two pieces of that decking.

 

[NZGarage]

The lower surface is a nice rough texture ideal for fixing a tile too.

What I propose is you make a feature out of the lower recess by installing a strip of ceramic tiles which sit in the recess directly behind the garage door seal ideally quite thick tiles.

This would work like a step up so the lip is not one big step.

Just for aesthetics have you considered a ground polished plain concrete finish to your garage floor.

 

[larry4406]

The OP is in MD. The garage weatherlip detail he has is pretty typical for this region. Supposed to prevent driving rain from coming in. I personally don't like them and used a tapered end instead on my build. However, when the day job shows it on the approved plans, they get installed...

 

[Lewisthepilgrim]

I would grind the lip down and call it a day. Alternatively you could pour fresh over is and trowel it down to grade gradually......but durability would be questioned long term. Anything is better than that lol

 

[black2002ls]

Look for some local concrete cutters. Find one that is able to do a horizontal curb cut and they should be able to cut that lip at an angle for you.

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[jvitez]

My mother's garage floor sank creating the opposite problem: a big step down from the grade beam. For some reason the slab was placed behind the grade beam, not on top.

What I did for her is make a ramp out of 3/4" plywood. I cut 3 pieces the width of the garage door, one at 10", one 7" and one at 4" wide. I used construction adhesive to glue the 4" piece over the 7" one, then both over the 10" piece making a ramp with 3" between levels. I painted it with floor paint and put it just inside the garage door. It's been there for years and still holding up. If I did it again I'd use PWF plywood and skip the paint.

The OP could the same in reverse creating a ramp up. I doubt you'd even need to glue it down, the lip would hold it in place.

 

[scotthorton]

@AaronUrn My daughter just bought a new house. Cookie cutter neighborhood and they do all their garages like this. Just like yours except it's all one poured slab and apparently they used a 2x inset in the form to make this notch. Hers is about 1.5" but still gives a substantial, albeit nerve wracking bump driving into the garage. Adding insult to this is the garage isn't all that deep front to back so you have to balance between the inertia to drive the rear wheels over the bump vs too much speed and going too far.

What did you decide to do with yours?

@LegacyIndustrial, which of your products do you recommend for this purpose? I've got a concrete guy who will be familiar with the tools, but not familiar with this kind of detail work. May enlist him to do it for me. There's not a lot of room from top of ramp to bottom of inset garage door. Estimate 6-7". estimate 1.5" tall to feathered. Whats the minimum thickness on your product, will it feather?

 

[AaronUrn]

Hey @scottthornton! ***** she has the same problem too...these cookie cutter developers give no practical thought...I have the same problem on one side of my garage where the depth is much shorter so have to do the same balance when driving in carefully..

Anyway, the solution I came up with was a combination of some of the suggestions above - though I have not implemented it yet. As mentioned, I'm going the Swisstrax route to finish my garage floor. They have a couple types of edge pieces available - there's the inclined edge and a treadwear edge (I can't post links but you can look these up)

My plan is to use a stepped approach: I will apply the treadware edge to the threshold as it sits, without cutting or grinding anything. This will cover up the nasty unfinished "step".

Then both below and above this threshold, I will use the ramp style edge. At the highest point, the ramp edges are 0.75inch (i.e. the height of a tile) so will halve the height of the threshold lip.

So it will go something like:

Driveway ---> Swisstrax ramped edge ---> Swisstrax treadware edge ---> Swisstrax ramped edge ---> Swisstrax tile/garage floor

This won't be a perfectly smooth transition, but I think will do a good job of smoothing the ingress without a hard bump. Plus it's pretty cheap and visually pleasing with the rest of the swisstrax finish.

I've had to allocate funds elsewhere so this is on hold for a couple months before I go ahead and order a full swisstrax kit. Will definitely post up results when done!

 

[Bert_]

The OP is in MD. The garage weatherlip detail he has is pretty typical for this region. Supposed to prevent driving rain from coming in. I personally don't like them and used a tapered end instead on my build. However, when the day job shows it on the approved plans, they get installed...

Sloping by the door is better but nobody slopes it enough. A 10* slope would be about right and the door has to sit on the slope for it to really work good.

The old way with a piece of pipe in the floor was actually pretty good too.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

@AaronUrn My daughter just bought a new house. Cookie cutter neighborhood and they do all their garages like this. Just like yours except it's all one poured slab and apparently they used a 2x inset in the form to make this notch. Hers is about 1.5" but still gives a substantial, albeit nerve wracking bump driving into the garage. Adding insult to this is the garage isn't all that deep front to back so you have to balance between the inertia to drive the rear wheels over the bump vs too much speed and going too far.

What did you decide to do with yours?

@LegacyIndustrial, which of your products do you recommend for this purpose? I've got a concrete guy who will be familiar with the tools, but not familiar with this kind of detail work. May enlist him to do it for me. There's not a lot of room from top of ramp to bottom of inset garage door. Estimate 6-7". estimate 1.5" tall to feathered. Whats the minimum thickness on your product, will it feather?

Cut a key in the concrete, end it in the key.


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[scotthorton]

Cut a key in the concrete, end it in the key.

? In order to meet the minimum thickness @ the thin end? If I've got to get a concrete saw man out there to key it, it wont' be cost effective. I'd rather form and keep to minimum thickness. Assuming I understand your reply.

Taking a stab at which of your products to use, it looks like the one you mentioned before goes to 1/16". Is that realistic?

For a 18' wide door, 6" x 1.5" ramp, the volume is 0.6ft3. Looks like your "large" kit for "FiveTon Epoxy Patch" is 0.33ft3 so I'd need 2 of those and be cutting it close. Sound right?

 

[scotthorton]

Driveway ---> Swisstrax ramped edge ---> Swisstrax treadware edge ---> Swisstrax ramped edge ---> Swisstrax tile/garage floor

This won't be a perfectly smooth transition

Hmmm, no, it won't. Seems like a lot of stepping and you've got the added thickness of the flooring on top now. Gonna be a pretty steep ramp unless you carry under the door.