Please help, floor not draining.

[GreenState]

So we bought our house last winter and didn't use the garage too much, it was more of a staging area for boxes and such. This winter we're using it as a garage and what we thought was a minor problem has turned out to be a major one: The drain doesn't drain. Well, if you pour water into it, it works fine. But that's the only way to get water into it. Instead of being sloped towards the drain, the floor is generally level, with slightly lower parts. So when we pull snowy cars in, the water melts off and goes everywhere. It's favorite locations are in front of the entry doors and into the back wall. As you can see from the picture, water right next to the drain actually flows away from it.

What can I do to get the water into the drain? I should mention that this is a radiant heat floor as well so I can't just jackhammer a trench drain into it (I'd love to..)

I called a concrete cutting guy, and his estimate was $700 to cut about 30' of a groove, which I feel I could do myself with a rented concrete saw as I'd only be going down an inch at most. He didn't sound very excited about the radiant floor either. The floor is relatively level overall, so I don't need much pitch to get the water to move.

I'd really appreciate some help with this, I'm spending far too much time with a wet vac trying to keep water at bay.

 

[chickenhauler]

You could probably tile it and get enough pitch to move the water where you want it. You could skim coat it too, but would have to etch it well, and even then I'm not sure how well it would hold up.

 

[blm77]

You have to make a slope not a groove. Looks like you have a few spots where water not draining and make a slope with concrete will be expensive.

 

[RodneyPierce]

sad news is, they should have sloped it when they did the pour. I dont see a very good option (economically) that will fix that. Aside from tiling the floor like mentioned above and trying to gain the slope you need that way.

 

[IGOTWUD]

Have you considered a dehumidifier for a quick fix.
During the spring when my heat is not running and before I turn the Air Cond on, my basement is aways damp. I run a dehumidifer with a small floor fan to circulate the air. My wife says she doesn't use the close dryer because the close dry so fast.

 

[tncatadjuster]

You could cut channels to the drain with a diamond saw. They will work only so well, and have to be tapered to the drain. Floor could end up looking like a road map.

Patching will not work, you will only damn up another lake.

Sloping is an option, expensive and major work.
My dehumidifier wil take about three gallons a day out, and cost about
a dollar a day to run.

good luck.

 

[JimVonBaden]

Push squeegie is about the only option. Ise it to push the water under the car towards the drain.

There is no easy fix here.

Jim

 

[Gary S]

Mother Nature will not let a drain work if it is installed at the top of the hill. Level floors are nasty in a garage if you live where it snows. Neither of these pieces of wisdom help you now that the contractor built the floor wrong.
Grooves like you suggested might help, but be very careful you don't go deep enough to damage the infloor heat piping.

 

[ScaldedDog]

How about one of those grooved car mats that Costco sells? You could at least set the front of it on something to keep water off the back wall.

Mark

 

[GreenState]

I think I may try cutting a few shallow grooves as a band-aid fix until this summer when I can get a concrete guy in here to properly fix the floor. It should at least act as a boundary for the water. It seems like adding some material is the only option to really get it right. Tiles might work, but it would **** to find out afterwards that they didn't.

If you were to cut grooves, would you do a perimeter of grooves with one or two inner ones that connect to the drain, or do a number of grooves all starting in the drain and going in all directions?

Also, any slick ideas on how to get the concrete saw to make a sloping cut? Maybe I could make a 8' x 2" wedge with the band saw out of a 2x4 and have the depth wheel of the saw drive up that as I was cutting? That would keep the cut straight too...especially if the wheel rode in a groove.

 

[ScaldedDog]

Having radiant floor heat myself, I'd think a long time before cutting into that floor, particularly for a fix that is only temporary.

Here are the mats I mentioned earlier.

Mark

 

[Sureshot]

You don't really need the cuts tapered anyway as long as the drain end is "open" it will at most hold the volume of the cut but I would look more to a mat system or some other wat of berming it into that area.

 

[GreenState]

I don't love the idea of cutting the floor, but if I was going to have it redone I was thinking the cuts would get filled then.

http://www.elite-xpressions.com/flooring_parksmart_cleanpark.htm

Has anybody tried these? For $500 I could tub both vehicles. Maybe run a hose from them to the drain?

 

[GreenState]

I don't love the idea of cutting the floor, but if I was going to have it redone I was thinking the cuts would get filled then.

http://www.elite-xpressions.com/flooring_parksmart_cleanpark.htm

Has anybody tried these? For $500 I could tub both vehicles. Put a hole in one where the drain is. Somehow get the water out of the other one..

 

[jhelrey]

Sounds like the same thing that I just ran into in my house I just bought. Instead, the owners concreted the floor drain in. 24x10 inches. I finally got around to busting the concrete out. To my surprise, there was 4 inches of sand and 4 inches of concrete so it went easy. It cleaned up so nicely and you couldn't even tell it was filled. I put 5 gallons in it and it drained out. Okay, walk around the house, the water was coming out behind the siding. The filled wood strips and brought the vinyl siding down over it without drilling a hole and extending it. Well, I did that and I am all good. My friend is going to weld up a grate

 

[Scott65]

Has anyone considered that this is not a drain? Could be a clean out for the interior plumbing? It doez not look like a drain that would handle garage runoff and the placement is entirely wrong. I may be way off base,but I would make sure it is what you think it is... Water would drain around a clean out depending on the soil underneath.

 

[Wingnut65]

I agree with the others, a sloped floor is the best way to get water to a drain. If creating the slope with tiles or another coat of concrete, then the objective should be not to move the water to the drain, but to get the people away from the standing water. That could be achieved with ventilated floor tiles like RaceDeck's Free-Flow. This will allow the snow to melt down to the concrete while keeping keep dry. That and a dehumidifier to help speed the evaporation process.

BTW, Welcome to GJ. Nice garage! Love that wood.

Also, RaceDeck has a GJ Member discount! Get a cool floor and solve your problem at the same time!

 

[GreenState]

Has anyone considered that this is not a drain? Could be a clean out for the interior plumbing? It doez not look like a drain that would handle garage runoff and the placement is entirely wrong. I may be way off base,but I would make sure it is what you think it is... Water would drain around a clean out depending on the soil underneath.

It is a drain, I do agree that the placement is wrong. There was a perforated cover on it that I removed so water would have an easier time getting in there when I was pushing it with a squeegee. Any water dumped in it ends up in being dumped out the rock wall next to the garage and into the field.

Racedeck open tiles and a dehumidifier is an option, but it seems like an expensive work around. I know it's going to be expensive to have the floor done, so at this point I need something to last for 3 months or so that is cheap and temporary. Last winter I ran a bead of silicone around the outside of the vehicles and it worked ok until too much water built up or we damaged the seal. Maybe a heavy duty tarp laid over a perimeter frame of fir strapping would contain the mess?

 

[GreenState]

Thanks so much for the help all, I really appreciate the input.

 

[tncatadjuster]

The local craigslist has the "used billboard" tarps cheap and they are water tight I believe.

 

[GreenState]

The local craigslist has the "used billboard" tarps cheap and they are water tight I believe.

There we go, I like this.

 

[GreenState]

So, after taking some suggestions from the members here, I'm trying my first band-aid solution. Completed cost: $12.

The mention of 'used billboard tarps' made me think of the pole-barn that collapsed last winter here. The metal is gone, but I hadn't thrown out the big pieces of the super-duper heavy duty tarp. Lucky for me.

I got some fir strapping for $2 per 12' and framed out the area that the vehicles sit it plus some room for dripping. The frame isn't attached to the floor, it's just screwed to the wood on each side of the door.

I dragged a piece of the barn fabric into the driveway and sliced out the biggest section I could find without holes and brought that inside to dry. When that was done I laid it out over the frame, screwed it down, and sliced off the extra. The last thing was cutting out the drain and taping the tarp down around that.

For an immediate test it decided to snow hard at the end of the day so both vehicles were snow covered when they came in.

After a few hours all the snow had melted and I went to check on things. Before at this point our entry mat would be saturated, there would be standing water next to that as well as the front door, and water would be pooling up against the back wall. Now, ALL of the water has been contained. It's not draining completely, but the house isn't flooding.

Thanks for the suggestions for containing the mess rather than cutting my floor. Much easier.