Garage floor concrete in Springfield IL - a floor built to stand up to road salt

Most people call when the old floor has cracked across, dropped near the door or started flaking where the car sits, and that usually traces back to a thin base, water running the wrong way or salt on a slab that wasn't made for it. The price depends on the size of the garage, whether the old floor has to come out, sometimes with concrete cutting to free it from the walls, how much digging the base needs and whether you're planning a lift or a coating. The schedule depends on the weather on pour day and the time the slab needs to cure before you use it. I'll give you a figure for your own garage once I've looked at it in person.

We start by looking at where water runs in and out of the garage, then break out the old floor if there is one and dig down to firm ground instead of raking loose dirt level. Next we pack the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, because a floor only stays flat if what's under it doesn't settle, and we set the forms so the floor falls slightly toward the door and away from the house. Where the slab calls for it we place rebar, steel bars that hold the concrete together if it does crack, and we pour early in the day so midday heat doesn't leave a weak, dusty top. After finishing the surface we cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a straight, planned place to crack instead of a random one. A garage floor takes the salt off your tires all winter, so we pay close attention to the mix and to curing, keeping the new slab damp and protected so it hardens slowly and gains its full strength. If a budget has to give somewhere, I'd rather it be the look of the top than the base, because the base is hidden on day one and it's the part that decides whether the floor sinks. If you're planning a lift or a coating later, please mention it at the estimate so we can plan the slab with that in mind.

Some garage jobs reach past the floor. If the walk to the side door or the apron out front could use color or pattern, our decorative concrete work can tie in with the new slab. On a lot where the garage is cut into a slope, concrete retaining walls hold the bank back so dirt and runoff stay off the building and the floor.

In Springfield, the city's Building & Zoning Department issues permits, and its list names building, roof, fence, parking lot and other work but not garage floors, so the list alone doesn't settle whether your job needs one. The department is the place to ask, and we check what it asks for at your address and take care of the permit paperwork for our work when a permit applies. If your lot is in a floodplain, the city requires a floodplain development permit before any development there, and it counts reconstruction and substantial improvements to existing buildings as development. On a city permit application, the owner and the applicant are responsible for soil compaction and mine subsidence research, and the permit doesn't in any way approve the land as suitable, so if the office asks something of you as the owner, we'll let you know early.

Around Springfield we often find older attached garages where the floor has dropped near the overhead door or tips back toward the house, so water sits by the steps instead of running out. We check the fall and what's under the old slab before we price anything, and we see the same kinds of garages on jobs in Chatham and Decatur. If your city isn't one we list, please ask about your address.