LESLIE: Rod in Colorado’s got that sinking feeling. What’s going on?
ROD: Well, I have a garage floor. It’s sinking in the middle inside of the garage door/back door and it’s sunk about three-and-a-half inches …
TOM: Wow.
ROD: … and I don’t know whether I have to tear it all out or whether I can just fill it in with concrete.
TOM: Well, let’s first talk about why that happened. How old is your house, Rod?
ROD: About 50 years old.
TOM: Yeah, well you know, typically what happens is as the home is constructed there’s a lot of soil disturbance in the garage and also it tends to be the last place to have the floor put down so it ends up being a lot of debris that gets tossed in the garage in many situations.
ROD: Yeah.
TOM: And so that erodes and decays over the years and all of those soil voids get filled in or open up and then the concrete sinks and sort of fills that in. So that’s what’s happening. The good news is that the garage floor is not part of the structure of the home and so…
ROD: No it’s not.
TOM: … you’re really just dealing with a cosmetic issue. If it’s sunk that far I think the best thing for you to do is to break it up and pull it out and put a new one in.
ROD: Oh.
TOM: If you poured another layer on top of it, chances are you could have more movement underneath of it. You don’t know what the situation is there and it would be a shame to put the new floor on top of the old one and have it crack again. I know that’d really break your heart. So my suggestion would be for you to tear up the old floor. It’s actually not that hard to do, especially if it’s 50 years old and already starting to crack. A jackhammer can probably do some pretty serious damage in there in a couple of hours.
ROD: Yeah.
LESLIE: (chuckling) And be noisy and fun.
ROD: (chuckling) Yeah. OK, thank you.
TOM: You’re welcome, Rod. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
So my house was built 1967 and the garage installed almost seems like after thought. We bought from our in-laws and it wasn’t apparent at the time how bad the original owners built it. They used a 6” slab so with the weight of the garage and poorly installed rain gutters it made the garage slab in to almost thirds. My problem is that the outer garage wall sill has sunk to the point that water can enter the garage and has rotted the sill. What are my options for lifting up the wall then demo the old floor and install a thicker slab along with fixing the rotted sill?
Hello, I have a 2 bay garage, one half of the floor is settling and cracking, could I just bore some holes in the floor and pour concrete to shore it up
Not regular concrete, you’d need a product that’s designed to adhere to the old concrete. My recommendation would be ReCap by Quikrete.
I’m looking at a house right now with the same problem. The original garage bay floor is GONE. The homeowner ended up adding a bay to not deal with it. Was figuring on total replacement. Hadn’t even thought of buried garbage as the cause. I remember when I lived in NJ there were a bunch of sinkholes caused by buried construction material. Makes perfect sense. Thanks for posting this .
We thought we’d chime in here for a slightly different perspective on sinking garage floor issues. Tom, you are absolutely correct in why the garage floor settles over time and most likely after 50 yrs its most likely done “moving” , but what we want to tell you about is a process called polyjacking.
Our company Concrete Corrections specializes in lifting, supporting and void filling with polyurethane foam. You may be familiar with spray foam insulation, the very best way to insulate a home these days. Well, our product is very similar, but it is specially formulated for concrete lifting purposes.
Front steps, walkways and patios can be brought back up into place within a matter of hrs. Pool decks are free of trip hazards. And garage floors brought back to level and can now support the weight of vehicles without worry of settlement. We even work alongside PIERING companies who lift entire homes!
So, with all that being said, tearing the concrete out is not always the needed remedy. Often times we can save the homeowner TIME & MONEY by lifting / leveling with polyurethane foam rather than replacement. Front yards and landscaping doesn’t get destroyed, we repair concrete quickly, the polyurethane foam weighs ~4 lbs / cu ft, so chances of resettlement is nearly zero.
Please check us out at:
http://www.correctyourconcrete.com