Question about a terrible garage floor - slab/foundation problems?

[VadGTI]

I'm under contract for a house in the SoCal area. The area is perfect, just blocks away from the local canyons for canyon-carving action and the place would be an excellent home base/relaxation spot after a weekend canyon run with some friends. As part of that, I have dreams of a beautiful garage where the friends can work on their cars or bikes when necessary, but this garage's flooring issues are definitely not beautiful.

My concern is that this is a serious slab/foundation issues that can't be covered up and that even a full concrete floor replacement won't fix as they'll just recur. The garage is attached, so my concerns extend to the remainder of the house. Since there's no crawlspace, I have no idea what's hiding underneath the current flooring. I don't want to end up in a world of hurt with this purchase.

Thoughts on what's happening there currently?

Edit: Not sure if Imgur links are permitted, so I'll try to attach pics as well.

 

[TTMotorsports]

I would have a concrete company come out to inspect it and see what they say. Sometimes they can cut a small section out like 1ft square and remove it to see what's going on near it under the rest of the concrete and that could tell them to cut/remove the concrete and repack under the existing or what needs to be done. I looked at a home 8 years ago that had a huge crack in garage. Had it inspected and the one edge of garage was sagging down and concrete needed to be removed. Wall jacked up, fix the compaction under concrete and pour a larger footing. BUT i didn't buy that house and new owners/flippers just poured a skim coat of concrete to hide the defect and sold the place to make 50-60K on it easily. Also the inspection was fairly cheap at $250 BUT the repair work was quoted at 8K and was not worth it although looking back I still could've made a good profit with doing it the right way. I did see the house had the front of garage in the yard all dug out a couple years ago so the patch repair was biting the new owners when it failed like expected.

 

[Machinitect]

I agree with TT. Until there is an inspection, it’s just a guess what is happening with that concrete slab. There is a chance that the house is fine. The garage concrete may have been poured without proper compaction, too thin, or without steel reinforcing. At a minimum, I would budget for the removal of existing and a new garage slab. You may want to budget for removing some of the existing soil, possibly adding drainage if there is a water problem, and compacting new AB3 fill before pouring a new 5” reinforced slab.

Years ago I removed a portion of a basement floor in a 1950’s era house and found a 1-2” concrete slab without rebar.

 

[03ranger]

Question, how old is the house and garage? This is not that unusually in Socal for a house built in the 1950/1960's, in the land of bake and shake. It does appear that someone did a skim coat at one time. on the floor. What kind of soil are you on? DG, clay, sand...? How thick is the original slab?

You should get an inspection before moving forward with the project.

 

[VadGTI]

Question, how old is the house and garage? This is not that unusually in Socal for a house built in the 1950/1960's, in the land of bake and shake. It does appear that someone did a skim coat at one time. on the floor. What kind of soil are you on? DG, clay, sand...? How thick is the original slab?

You should get an inspection before moving forward with the project.

Built in 1951. No idea on the soil, but it's on flat land right near the hills (Mulholland and other Malibu canyons), wonder if there's an online resource to figure that out.