New garage floor!

Our garage was built in the early 80s. The slab floor apparently was insufficiently strengthened, and it slumped a little in a couple of spots, creating a low spot where water would puddle, and then ice would form in the winter, and then ice would do what ice does, and the result was a number of holes, one of them quite large and about 2 inches deep. One of the things we do in this garage in the summer is square dance, and the holes were a trip hazard and unpleasant, because they also shed little shiffles of concrete as you walked on them.

A couple of years ago we had the idea we should be fixing this problem. So, the usual call contractors, have them come, have them give you estimates, have them not come after you decide on one of them, etc. and a year and a half passes. One of them who never came kept saying they would come, or we would've given up on them earlier. In the fall of 2024 I emailed one of the contractors who we had not chosen earlier (he was more expensive), and asked if he was still interested. He said yes, for an additional 10%. We agreed.

By the time it came to actually schedule this work, it was getting towards winter. There's a little concern about pouring concrete in the cold, but they said it would be okay. (We will see, if this subsides in 10 years, we will be sad. But they say there's some additive that they put in it to make it strong even when poured in the cold.)

Unfortunately, when we were going over the original work, I mentioned that we are extremely lazy about closing our garage doors, and thus water gets in, and I never did mention dancing. So he decided that "to be helpful" he would give us a sidewalk finish rather than a slick finish, so that when water froze we would have better traction getting to our cars. Unfortunately this means we have too much traction for dancing. After it was kind of too late, I asked if he was planning to polish it, he explained about the traction thing and I explained about the dancing thing. If only he had asked. If only I had known that there was an option to have a different finish. Anyway, it's possible he will come in the spring and shave it down to be smoother. Or maybe we will see about getting some kind of temporary flooring that can be easily put down.

I took pictures!

The hole.
Close-up of a stained gray concrete floor,
			    with a large irregular hole showing in a
			    much lighter color of gray. The shape is a
			    bit like India, wide on the top, narrow on
			    the bottom. And even a little extra hole
			    on the bottom right to be Sri Lanka.

First, we had to take all the belongings out of the garage and put them somewhere.
A brown shingled building. On one side is a large pile of stuff including some tarps, a contraption with three skis and a platform, a blue wheelbarrow on its side, and a wooden teeter totter. On the other visible side there is a white canopy with aluminum poles and white ropes going at an angle out to stakes in the lawn. Under the canopy is a structure underneath a blue tarp with some highway cones holding down the tarp, and behind that you can see a red wheelbarrow full of junk, some boxes with more junk, a hand truck, an empty shelving unit, and an orange tangle of hosing.

Next they had to demolish the entire existing floor.
Angled shot of the interior of the garage; a bicycle is hanging on the rear wall. A workman is holding a cement saw cutting a slice through the garage floor. The rear of a large dump truck is visible to the right.

They had to get the chunks out after cutting them.
A Bobcat tractor with a front loader attachment on. A worker is placing a concrete block into the front loader. To the right there is a forklift attachment (not attached), with some much larger (4 ft. square) concrete blocks half in/half out of the garage next to it.

There was a lot of garage floor to remove.
A slightly angled shot of one bay of the garage. You can see two bicycles and some bicycle wheels hanging on the rear wall. About the front half of the concrete blocks have been removed, revealing gravel beneath. The rear half has had slices cut through the concrete. There are some machines and garden hoses; the floor is wet.

All the concrete is out, and they are cleaning up with shovels, particularly along the edge. Originally the asphalt had slumped and there was a 2 inch lip. They cut away some of the asphalt and made a smooth interface.
Angled shot of the garage with two workers using shovels and one doing something with yellow string for 'leveling' (it wasn't level: they gave it a slight slant, but they needed to make the slant the same everywhere.)

After flattening the dirt on the bottom, they filled it in with gravel.
Slightly angled shot of the garage with a partial Bobcat machine on the left. There is a bunch of gravel in the rear of the garage and also in a big pile on the driveway, and also some dirt patches yet to be filled in. Two workers are wielding shovels and one is standing and watching.

All the gravel filled in and flattened.
Angled shot of the garage floor with beautifully flat gray gravel.

The cement truck came the next day!
A cement truck from Tresca brothers, with a red door on the cab, and 'OUIF' printed (upside down from this vantage) on the large cone shaped cement mixing vessel. There are 4 tires visible on the side, holding up the heavy cement on the truck, and a few smaller cylindrical vessels, one of which is green and has the numbers 243 blazoned on the end. A worker in a bright yellow jacket stands by the door and speaks to the driver.

Pouring the first bit.
A worker in a bright yellow shirt, standing on the gravel inside the garage, guiding the cement pouring out of the tube at the front of the cement truck. A bit of cement truck is visible in the corner of the photo.

After they poured the first inch or so and spread it out, they laid in some rebar mesh.
A worker in a bright yellow shirt and gray pants walks on freshly poured cement with rust colored six-inch square mesh reinforcing steel bars. In the background are some other workers with shovels and the cement extruding tube.

After pouring the layer over the rebar, they smoothed it with a machine.
An angled shot of the garage. The rear half has smooth-looking cement. In the front half a worker in a bright yellow sweatshirt is pulling a contraption across the cement while a worker in a pink sweatshirt spreads the cement behind him. The contraption has a 10 foot wide blade and a motor mounted in the center with handles.

All done! Wet cement.
A slightly angled shot up the garage with the wet cement completed. You can see it abutting nicely with the asphalt.

We also had them do a little bit more outside; the area had been subsiding and had become full of dirt as a result of storms. The angle is where there was a large crack which seemed to be a good place to abut.
The far left hand side of the garage, interior seen as flat wet cement from before. To the left of the garage, outdoors, there is a trapezoidal piece of freshly poured and smoothed cement that abuts the asphalt driveway and an older piece of sidewalk at an angle. Behind the new cement is a grassy patch with much junk on it including a ladder. In front of the cement, leaning against the garage wall is a blue handled cement smoothing tool.

Done and dried! We could walk on it after 24 hours, and put a car in after a week.
Shot encompassing all three bays of the garage, the cement is dried and lighter color now. The dark gray asphalt of the driveway is stained with light gray cement juice.