Garage & Shed Slabs in Lafayette, IN

Garage & Shed Slabs are the concrete you stop thinking about once the building goes up, which is why they need to be right the first time. A garage floor carries cars, snowmelt and salt dripping off them all winter. A shed pad holds a mower, a snowblower and whatever else gets stacked on it. Detached garages behind older homes often sit on floors that have cracked, sunk at the door or been poured with no slope at all, so water from melting snow just sits and soaks in.

New slabs for garages and sheds

New garages and larger outbuildings often need a building permit. Around Lafayette that can run through the Tippecanoe County Building Commission process; the Town of Shadeland, for example, signs off on its own part of that process on its permit checklist. The footing and slab design for a garage depends on what the building department wants for that structure, so we check before we plan the pour rather than guess. For a small shed on a simple pad, the rules are often lighter, but we still check.

The slab itself starts with layout: square corners, the right size for the building kit or framer's plan, and anchor bolt locations marked before the pour. Then we dig out topsoil and soft ground, compact a gravel base, set forms, place reinforcement and pour. HomeGuide notes that garage floors are typically 4 to 6 inches thick with reinforcement, while shed slabs are usually about 4 inches and often need none. We size thickness to the load, not the minimum.

Slope and drainage

A garage floor should fall gently toward the overhead door so melted snow runs out instead of pooling under the car. The apron outside the door should keep falling away so water does not run back in. For a shed, the pad should sit a little above the surrounding grade so rain does not run in under the doors. On wet ground, which is common on the flat land around Lafayette in spring, the base and the pad height matter more than usual.

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Replacing an old garage floor

Replacing the floor in an existing garage is tight work. The old slab has to be broken up and carried out through the door, the base repaired, and the new floor poured without damaging the walls or sill plates. Often the floor has sunk at the door or along one wall, and the cause is water getting under it, so we deal with the drainage at the same time. If the walls sit on the slab edge, we check how they are supported before we cut anything.

Signs your garage floor needs work

• Water pooling in the middle or back of the garage after snow melts off the car.
• A sunken apron or a lip at the overhead door.
• Wide cracks with one side higher than the other.
• Scaling and pitting where cars park, from years of salt brine.

Care

Rinse salty slush off the floor during the winter when you can, and seal the floor after it cures. If you plan to coat the floor with epoxy later, tell us before the pour so the finish and curing suit the coating.