Your thoughts on this garage floor?

[snk]

Hi All,

I just placed an order for a MaxJax the other day, and I'm very excited to get it. However, I'm thinking I need to redo my garage floor. Please see pics below.

What do y'all think of the condition and how much do you think it would cost to redo it? The inside dimensions are 17'5" wide and 22' 2" deep.

Thanks!

 

[tatra]

looks like my floor and i got an mj on the gj group buy and still haven't gotten a plan down........looking forward to the suggestions.........

 

[trailwart]

if it was my floor, i would replace. do you know what the depth is?? how old is that floor?? last floor i did was 48x56 at 4" deep. did it with a few friends(about 6 of us) and had 1900$ wrapped up in it. poured in November so they had some additive for curing and i opted for glass in it.

for your job, jack hammer for busting it up into manageable pieces and needing a place to dispose of it would be the toughest/hardest part of the job. maybe you can sub that part out if your up to doing the pour yourself.

on a side note with something to think about, does the floor look safe for use with a car on a lift?? that's a decision you and only you can make because our opinions dont really count, its not our car or floor.

my honest opinion on the matter at hand, i would not trust my life under a lift on that floor or a floor in that shape.

about a year ago i helped a friend remove his garage floor(i wasnt in on the pour though) and prep it for his pour. his floor was cracked and some heaving. there were areas that were 2" and some up to 5" thick, very inconsistent pour. the real scary eye opener was that we found a tunnel and a 2 foot area that was dug out by some animal in the past, kind of like a den. imagine if a support post for a lift was placed over the den, luck would run out eventually. concrete is to cheap to take chances with a life.

 

[cowboyjosh]

replace the floor, its your best option for the long term. With the downturn in the housing market many contractors are looking for any kind of work so you'll probably not have a problem finding someone who won't be eager to help you out.

 

[Cryptic1911]

there's no way I would put a 2 post on that floor.

 

[ChristopherLutz]

DEFINITELY NOT!

To be "correct" you should have properly poured footings for lifts....footings that greatly exceed the 4-6 in depth of a standard garage pour. I wouldn't risk it.

If I had the time, I would rent a concrete disposal bin, rent a jack hammer and pull out the floor myself. I'd also prep the the new floor myself (most of the forming work is already done via your wall footings...most garage floor pours are seperate.

You can get new concrete mixes that are MUCH, MUCH improved over older batches AND properly re-bar. Also, you can dig down by hand at the connection points for the lift.

I know how you feel, my previous house was built in 64 - the garage had canyons of cracks. I hated it...we moved before I replaced. Lots of work, but mostly "manual labor".

Hope you have lots of friends

 

[snk]

Thanks guys! Y'all have confirmed my gut feeling that this garage floor needs to be "ripped and replaced".

I have never done any kind of construction work before so I'm a little apprehensive when it comes to things like jack hammering and prep work (mostly the latter as I believe in proper prep producing best results). I'm thinking I definitely need to outsource the concrete pour... Do you think it's really worth the savings to do the prep work myself? If it's under $1K to do the prep, I'm inclined to let somebody else do it because my weekends are booked solid as is.

In other news, I received a call from Rudy @ Dannmar just now letting me know that the GJ group buy price was reduced to $1,800 so he's going to adjust the price on my order and even better, it's now going to ship today! Gotta love a vendor who takes care of his customers.

I guess that means I better start calling around.

Any guesses on what this might cost if I outsource the whole thing?

Thanks y'all!

 

[rburke65]

At 20'x20' garage at 4" thick you are looking at 5 yards of concrete...?...$500.At 6inches .....yep, you're correct...$600. And yes, I also think you need and want a new floor. If you tore it out and got it ready, that would be an easy side job for a concrete finisher.

 

[Diverbill45]

No question about it, replace the floor

I redid my shop floor about 2 years ago and went with a 6" floor with 1/2" rebar on 12" centers, with a double layer of moisture barrier underneith. Makes for one heavy duty floor. I also added 2-1/2" angle iron on the front edge of the slab in order to keep from having the front edge break off, as I have seen many floors do, due to something heavy hitting the edge, or being dropped on it. The apron in front of the shop is also 6" thick with rebar and angle iron all the way around the outer edges.I know this is way more than I actually needed, but what I had before, left a lot to be desired. I have no idea who poured the last floor, but they sure didn't know what they were doing. When I moved in it was already cracked and chipped and it kept getting worse, so I just finally decided to make sure that the next floor wasn't going to be a problem. I already had the rebar and angle iron left over from another job, so I needed to put it to good use.

I never planned on having a lift installed, but if I ever to decide to, then the floor is already there. I am planning on having a lathe, in the near future and in the area where it will go, I made the floor 8" and doubled the rebar. I know it's overkill, but at least I won't have to worry about it not handling the weight.

 

[kbs2244]

It looks like you have an attached garage.
You don’t say where you are, but most attached garage floors are just floating slabs inside a perimeter foundation.
Bust it out and go thicker.

As a related but aside question…
For all you guys that are so worried about the specs on the concrete below your lifts,
Has anyone ever calculated the PSI load of those huge tool boxes sitting on a few castors?

When I got my data card cabinet to use as a tool box I put it on a dolly with 4 castors.
As I was setting everything up it was real clear that even empty it was real heavy.
(When I moved it I had emptied everything out, so the total weight was not so obvious.)

I was thinking about this this PM while relaxing in the garage after a project.
It would seem there is a whole lot of weight on not much surface.

 

[snk]

How can you tell it's an attached garage from the pics? You are indeed correct. If the existing floor is indeed a floating slab, then does that make the job easier? (I hope so!)

I'm thinking 6" thick where the posts go and 4" thick everywhere else. My plan is to have two sets of anchors so that I have two positions where I can set up the lift posts. One position will be centered in the whole garage when I have to do work that requires extra space around the car. The other position will be for when I need to park two cars in the garage but still need one of them to be lifted for one reason or another.

Given the above, I'm thinking there's going to be one horizontal band of 6" thick concrete spanning from the left side of the garage to the right.

BTW, $500-$600 for this job seems WAY low. I'm located in the Chicago suburbs if that helps with the guesstimates. I was thinking more along the lines of $4000-$5000.

 

[ddawg16]

How can you tell it's an attached garage from the pics?

Because it has those ugly glass blocks on one wall....no one would ever do that with a detached garage.....

Ok....those glass block are actually not ugly....and in fact are a good way of letting in light while making it secure....

And I do concure with everyone....that floor is in sad shape...

And yes, there is a real good chance that it will come out easy...one of the photos shows what looks like a 1/2" gap where part of the slap has pulled away from the stem wall....

If you yank it out....I would suggest also scraping out about 4 more inches of dirt....put down 2" of sand and gravel and give yourself 6" of slab.

 

[colt340]

Hi All,

I just placed an order for a MaxJax the other day, and I'm very excited to get it. However, I'm thinking I need to redo my garage floor. Please see pics below.

What do y'all think of the condition and how much do you think it would cost to redo it? The inside dimensions are 17'5" wide and 22' 2" deep.

Thanks!

Your floor was not as bad as mine was, but I had it cut out and replaced.

This is what I started with.

This is what was cut out.

After the pour.

 

[DIC]

A buddy of mine has a floor just like that and he bought a new 2post lift......What he did was he cut out and dug two bell-bottom piers about 3' deep X 3' square with a rebar cage in it. Been about 10 or 12 years ago with no problems. But if were me I would rather replace the slab or cut out and replace sections of it.............

 

[snk]

Yeah, I guess the glass blocks look kinda out of place in a garage. I actually covered it up because I hate glass blocks.

colt340, looks like you took your garage down to redo the floor. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that with mine without a significant investment. Is this job impossible to do without taking down the walls?

DIC, I thought about doing that but seeing as I don't plan on staying in this house for more than 10 years, I figured it would be better for resale if I just redid the whole thing...

 

[Kevin54]

What is the rough texture right inside where the garage door is? If it is in the concrete, won't you worry about a dirt/water catching problem?

 

[Hobbs Concrete Flooring]

DiverBill replied:

No question about it, replace the floor

​

I redid my shop floor about 2 years ago and went with a 6" floor with 1/2" rebar on 12" centers, with a double layer of moisture barrier underneith. Makes for one heavy duty floor. I also added 2-1/2" angle iron on the front edge of the slab in order to keep from having the front edge break off, as I have seen many floors do, due to something heavy hitting the edge, or being dropped on it. The apron in front of the shop is also 6" thick with rebar and angle iron all the way around the outer edges. I made the floor 8" and doubled the rebar. I know it's overkill, but at least I won't have to worry about it not handling the weight.

Great response unless the extra cost is a challenge. If you can bear the extra cost, then this is exactly what I would recommend.

Jim Hobbs
Salem, Oregon
http://hobbspaintingandconcreteflooring.com​