Replacing concrete floor in the garage

[Awl_TEQ]

Some of you may have seen my thread about rebuilding two 8274 winches

https://forum.ih8mud.com/camping-gear-recovery/241652-just-another-8274-rebuild-lots-pics.html

and how the rebuild was interrupted by having to bail out of my garage to allow my home builder to replace the floor. The house is a two story with full basement and attached front garage. The house is 12 months old now and even when I took possession the garage floor was sinking in the middle. The floor was typical for around here with 4" thick pad, four 8" sonotube columns 6' deep, re-enforced with an 18 - 24" grid of rebar and the rebar drilled into the perimeter walls and driveway slab.

Two things in my opinion caused the slab to settle. 1) would be the lack of any real compaction of the soil/ gravel before pouring and B) would be the size. The water and sewer lines enter and exit the house under the garage and driveway. I believe this and concern about pushing out the foundation walls is why they don't use anything other than small vibrating tampers to compact the soil during construction. The size isn't huge - 22' x 26' - I call it two and a half car. But I would have put six support columns under it rather than four.

The floor had a 3" slope from the house to the driveway slab when it was poured to keep water running away from the basement. In August when I had the quality control guy in to inspect it there was enough settling to form a 4' x 10' standing puddle in the center of the floor 1/2" deep.

Now, we get a few snow dumps around here each winter usually in early spring and the garage is heated so there would basically be a puddle there all winter. Not acceptable. So my builder has replaced the floor and I am now watching it cure for four weeks before I paint it and move my schtuff back in.

So I thought I might bore you guys with some pics of curing concrete - it's much more entertaining than watching paint dry. Actually I have some fun planned. As stated above, I will be painting the floor. I'm going to use Jotunamastic two part epoxy industrial floor paint. It's leftover from work when we moved into the new bays and is very tough stuff - if a little slippery when wet. I'm gonna experiment with adding sand or something in high foot traffic areas to get more traction. I am also going to put up a 24" tall aluminum tread plate (diamond plate to some) baseboard around the perimeter to cover the foundation walls and make it look purdy. The tread plate is also surplus from work (I ain't made of money!). I'm doing the aluminum this weekend so will have some pics.


Here are three before pics from after I vacated the premises.

You can't really see the state of the floor in these shots

 

[Awl_TEQ]

The contractor (A-1 Concrete) showed up on time on the agreed upon day and used a bobcat with impact hammer to break up the floor. I left for work and so did not get pics of them loading the concrete onto the truck but came home to find they still had more to remove.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

On the second day..... I found this when I got home. Notice the two troughs in the gravel bed. They each run directly over two of the 8" columns which are 6' to 8' deep. These will form two beams running across the garage and are re-enforced with extra rebar. I don't believe the original floor had these beams.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

And on day three they poured. Now its day 9. The cure continues.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

To keep you glued to your screens and on the edge of your seats here are some shots of the rest of the garage.

The cabinets I made myself - no - really! I did. They are made 48" wide 30" or 24" tall and are 16" deep. They are made from 22 ga. galvanized sheet and riveted together with 1/8" pop rivets. They each have two shelves in one of three different configurations. I made one without shelves with different dimensions for my 12" compound mitre saw. I got the magnetic catches, door handles and hinge from Mcmaster Carr. I am the purchaser for a small custom CNC sheet metal shop (no - not duct work that's simple stuff - no offense intended). Started as a press brake operator, Turret punch operator etc. etc. shop forman.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Here is a couple of close ups.

If anyone wants the flat layout of all the parts in DXF. format your welcome to them.

The floor of the cabinets is doubled so things don't hang up on the lip.

The doors are double walled for stiffness.

All rivet holes are pre-punched to line up for assembly.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Aaarrrghhh. The damn doorbell keeps ringing - its driving me batty.

Really - I'm kind of spooked.


Threre it goes again - gotta run - - - more later

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Okay - the wife is handing out the candy.

The garage had one 120V circuit, two 60W light bulbs, no insulation, a heater and door opener when I got it.

I put in an I-beam running across the garage with a trolly and chain hoist. It is not part of the structure of the house - there is a much bigger laminated beam holding up the kids bedrooms. It is sitting on top of four 2x6 jack-studs at each end so I can move things across but not front to back of the garage. I got it from the scrap pile at work and had it painted with a bunch of other stuff from a job we were doing. I had it delivered on the date of possession of the house. I used a chain hoist, jackall and two buddies to maneuver it into a stud cavity and lift it up.

Of course the purpose of the hoist is engine pulling and I also plan to use it to lift the box and tub off my frame. I'll have to lift the engine and then push the chassis out of the way but I like having this system over an engine hoist because I can move more irregular and larger stuff this way.

The garage is insulated and heated, the overhead door is insulated and 8' tall. I put in two more 120V circuits as well as three 220V outlets each on it's own breaker. One for the compressor, one for a drill press and one for a belt sander. I also put in a 60 Amp service for my welder. I have a Miller 180 MIG welder. It only needs like 20 Amps but the TIG I plan on getting needs 60 Amps.

I put in eight x 4' two bulb fluorescent T-8 light fixtures.

I covered the walls with 3/8" OSB (chipboard). I like it better than drywall for durability and being able to put a screw in anywhere - within reason - and hit wood. Also its not expensive. I painted the walls and ceiling with ten gallons of white latex primer and then 5 gallons of semi-gloss white. With the white walls and 16 T-8 bulbs it is quite bright in there.

So --- this weekend I'm going to measure up the walls and drop in to work to make some diamond plate "baseboards". You'll see what I mean in the next few posts.

 

[73fj]

I figured you worked in a sheet metal shop, nice work.

 

[Pinion]

That is some fine cabinetry and sheet metal work.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

We had some 4'x6' 0.060" aluminum tread plate given to us by our machine shop (we've got three sister companies - weld/ fab, sheet metal and machine shop). I have no idea why they bought it but they wanted it out of the way so they gave it to us ... about three years ago - that qualifies it as surplus non-inventory material. Our employees are allowed to use the shop equipment after hours.....and so I do .

If you look at the first couple of posts you can see the concrete foundation comes up to about 18" - 22" above the new floor - and is rather unsightly given the white walls and soon to be painted floor - so I am going to cover it with checker plate. The walls are 2x6 and sit back from the edge of the foundation 1.5" forming a small ledge on the side walls. The floor is sloped and I will shear the material to suit.

I had a pic of the raw material but can't find it right now and I think you can get the idea from these. I cut the 4'x6' sheets in half to 2'x6' which is wide enough for even the tallest section. The three pics in this post are of forming the 1.5" flange. We have CNC forming presses but I did this on a Sunday and rather than change the tooling in them I just used our 8' box and pan hand break. It is rated for 16 Ga. steel but we use it up to 14 Ga. steel and even 1/8" aluminum. It will form a pan up to 6" deep and with sides up to 96" long as well as many other shapes - it's really up to the imagination of the operator (and the strength of his back).

So I made enough of these to run along the side walls of the garage.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Here is a pic of the 1.5" flange.

And one of the offset for the back wall. The back wall is shared with the house and has 1/2" drywall running down the wall and overlaping the foudation wall a few inches - hence the 1/2" offset to cover the drywall. This pic shows a sample piece to test the setup.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Here is the 1/2" offset in a 6' length. Aluminum tread plate (a.k.a. checker/ diamond plate) is made from 3003 utility grade aluminum. It is quite soft compared to our flat sheet 5052 or 6061 series aluminum and so, other than the surface being bumpy, forms quite easily. Even so, forming short flanges in a 6' length is a little tricky by hand. I have to use a 1/4" wide tool in the bottom of the brake to allow for the second bend and this tool is so narrow that it tends to just roll under the material instead of bending it. Not to brag but I gots skills in this small area of fabrication and got er done. The bends are over 90 on purpose so when fastened in place they will keep pressure to hold the baseboards in place.

In the second pic I am trimming the bottom edge in the shear. I made them all long and need to shear to allow for the slope of the floor. I sheared them all about 3/8" short because the concrete is not a perfectly straight slope.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

After cleaning up my mess I loaded up the "truck"

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Here they are just set in place - I think they look much better than the raw concrete.

I'm going to take a masonry chisel I have and knock off all the lumps and bumps from the concrete, then a little construction adhesive and screws where possible - stay tuned

 

[bkfj40]

make sure you put something between the aluminum and concrete...


bk

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Your thinking corrosion??

I plan on screwing to the wood and letting them just hang and cover the concrete. If I use a big glob of construction adhesive on the concrete and press the aluminum into it not too hard I should be able to keep them from actually touching eachother.

whaddayathink?

 

[Markgyver]

On the second day..... I found this when I got home. Notice the two troughs in the gravel bed. They each run directly over two of the 8" columns which are 6' to 8' deep. These will form two beams running across the garage and are re-enforced with extra rebar. I don't believe the original floor had these beams.

Did they put chairs under the rebar to pick it up off the dirt/ground?
If not your rebar is not doing you any good.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

No, I don't believe they did. But what I have seen in the past is the guys pulling the rebar up near the surface with a rake as they spread the concrete around. The few slabs I have seen poured over the years have all been done that way. The rebar in this application is code and the contractor is one of the bigger outfits around here. I'm not worried about the rebar being at the bottom of the slab.

 

[trainrech]

They just pull the rebar as they go.