Inconsistent Cracking and Fixing
Is it time to repair the garage floor cracks?
Cracked garage floors pose a serious tripping hazard, regardless of whether the garage is used primarily for parking, housing tools, or storing random items that the homeowner can’t bear to get rid of. Furthermore, cracks in the garage floor are always an indication of a more serious problem. When a building’s foundation sinks unevenly, it puts a lot of pressure on the garage slab, which can cause cracks in the floor.
Causer of Cracks in the Garage Floor: Settlement
Settlement is a frequent reason for cracks in garage floors. What we call “settlement” occurs when a building sinks into weak, non-load-bearing soil. Expansive soils are the result of the constant expansion and contraction of these fragile soils (often in direct correlation with the level of water saturation). Both clay and loam soils expand significantly.
When soils expand, they can cause serious problems for things like garage floors and foundations (or any structure that wants to remain level). It’s as if you were to lay a sheet of plywood on a flat floor. You can walk across the board without worrying about damaging the plywood’s integrity. The same board, however, will wobble or crack if you place it across an uneven surface and walk on it.
Just for fun, let’s imagine we’ve laid a plywood board foundation and now we’re going to attach framing to it, then we’ll build walls, and finally we’ll build a roof. Everything from the framing to the walls to the roof is affected by the uneven foundation. Large houses are the same in this regard.
As a result, the garage floor (typically a concrete slab reinforced with rebar) cracks as a result of the extreme and prolonged pressure caused by settlement.
Some additional warning signs of a settling garage floor are:
Garages with slanted floors, out-of-square garage doors and windows, and other accessibility issues
Damage to the garage’s drywall
Cracks in Garage Floors Caused by Voids
The void formation can also be brought on by soil settlement and expansion. To put it simply, holes in a structure are unsafe. Let’s consider grain storage silos. Subterranean air pockets can be quite substantial in grain silos, even beneath the surface corn layer. Sometimes these air pockets buckle if a worker decides to walk across the corn, burying the farmer alive.
Even though voids under houses aren’t as dangerous as those in grain silos, they still act similarly. Infrequently, the soil beneath your garage floor may give way, causing the soil above it to collapse and weaken the floor’s structural support. There are cracks in the garage floor because of the lack of even support.
Solutions to Settlement Cracks in Garage Floors
Settlement cracks in the garage floor can be difficult to repair. When compared to fixing cracks in the garage floor, most other home repairs are trivial. Epoxy is widely used to fix cracks in garage floors. Epoxy is commonly used to repair water-related issues, such as cracks and spalling. For larger cracks, carbon fiber staples are used in conjunction with epoxy.
Settlement cracks in a garage floor can’t be repaired with epoxy or carbon fiber staples alone. The uneven surface of your garage floor can be supported by underpinning using either a push pier or steel pier system. In the same way that stilts are driven into the ground to reach bedrock or load-bearing soil, push piers and helical piers are driven into the ground to reach the same depth. These piers distribute the load of the house so that the foundation or garage slab can be raised to an optimal level for repair (or as level as possible).
Are You Ready to Restore the Shine to Your Garage Floor?
This article explained why your garage slab may sink and how settlement can cause floor cracks. We discussed the causes of the spaces under your cracked garage floor and how to fix the problem with steel piers.
Is it time for you to reclaim your garage? The RLM Retrofit Foundation is here to assist you in regaining control of your property. We have repaired hundreds of uneven garage floors and thousands of uneven foundations. To get you back to work in your garage as soon as possible, we have the knowledge and experience to help. The Foundation Inspection Big Bear and repair specialists are standing by at (800) 824-6699 for your call.
