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1200 Butte Street Pilot Butte , SK S0G 3Z0

Garage Floor Concrete Levelling

Concrete Levelling Garage Floors

Whether you have an attached or a detached garage, you can be subject to a sinking floor. Often people realize their garage slab has sunk after they notice a gap under their overhead door or when the small “man” door begins to “stick”. Other indicators can be that the water in the eave troughs is running over the edge rather than going down the drain pipes or water from their car pools in one certain area of the floor. Regardless of what the indicator is raising a garage floor should be done as soon as it is noticed. 

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By raising the floor when the problem is first noticed is far less expensive than after it has fallen several plus inches. In the case of a detached garage once the floor has sunk the outer edge of the wood structure is often in the soil which normally will cause damage to the wood portion of the garage. It is only recently that garage floor plates are being constructed using treated lumber, so if the water is pooling on the inside of the garage against an outer wall or the outer wall of the garage has sunk enough that the wall is in the soil, rotting of the wood structure occurs more often than not on the floor plates. Also, the fact that the soil and vegetation have bound to the concrete slab lifting pressures now becomes greater making the lift more difficult or possibly not realistic. 
When it comes to attached garage floor slabs the problems are somewhat different. First off the floors generally sink at the foundation wall due to poor compaction at the time of backfill. When this occurs the water from the vehicles normally “run” towards the foundation. Generally, the floor slabs are dowelled into the foundation using metal rebar, this water combined with salt (used in winter) cause these metal dowels to rust and eventually fail. When these dowels fail the slabs will then fall causing a crack approximately 4 feet back from the wall. Once this occurs raising the slab becomes much more difficult; the reasons are simple. First off the fallen concrete will jamb against the foundation and with the added weight of cars on top the concrete slab may become so “locked” that the outer edge of the floor may need to be cut to raise the floor which adds extra costs. Secondly, the crack that occurs fills with debris, the weight of the vehicles continues to pack the debris into these cracks making it impossible to lift the floor so that the cracks “close.” And finally, once this floor is sloped towards the foundation water continues to run down the side of the foundation causing the further sinking of the floor.
There are many other reasons that garage floor slabs should be raised but above are some of the main problems that occur. In the end, it is far less costly to raise a garage floor as soon as sinking is detected. If you are unsure if your garage floor is sinking, Eco Concrete Levelling checks garage floors with a laser level taking all doubt out of what is going on with your floor. Call today for a consultation & a free estimate.