Garage floor concrete in Saratoga CA - a floor that stays flat and drains

Most people call us because the old floor has cracked, sunk at one end or holds a puddle under the car, or because a remodel needs a new slab. The price mostly comes down to the size of the garage, how thick the slab has to be for what you'll park or store, whether it needs rebar, the steel that helps hold a slab together, and how much ground work it takes before the pour. The schedule depends on what the city wants before work starts and on the days the concrete needs before you load it. I'll give you a figure for your own garage at the estimate visit and tell you then whether a permit is likely to apply.

Most of the work on a garage floor goes into the ground, because soft spots under a slab crack it no matter how good the concrete on top is. We dig out to the subgrade, the soil the slab sits on, and compact it evenly instead of just raking it level. Then we set forms with the floor sloped toward the door so spills run out rather than toward the house. We pour in the cooler part of the day so the top doesn't dry weak and dusty, and we cut control joints as soon as the concrete can take the saw. Those are shallow grooves that give the slab a straight, planned place to crack. While it cures, the slow hardening that sets its strength, we keep it damp. If you plan to park something heavy or put in a lift, we'll talk about bringing in an engineer and a thicker slab instead of counting on mesh. And if the budget has to give somewhere, I'd rather trim the finish than the ground work, since a nice surface on soft dirt won't hold up.

A new floor often brings up the rest of the garage. If you'd like color or a pattern on the slab or the approach, our decorative concrete work can be done at the same time. Where the garage or driveway sits against a slope, concrete retaining walls hold the bank back so dirt and water stay off the new concrete.

In Saratoga, the general rule is that most construction, alteration, repair or demolition work needs a permit before it starts, so we check early on what the City of Saratoga wants for your garage floor. When a permit applies, we handle the contractor's side and help you with the parts that fall to you as the owner. The city also inspects the slab after any piping, conduit or other lines under the floor are in place and before any concrete goes down. A floor drain, a water line or conduit for a car charger has to be planned and set before pour day, not added after.

We plan pour day around the city's work hours, which are 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, with no work on Sundays or weekday holidays. We're based in Saratoga and work across it and the cities around it. On garage jobs in Los Gatos and Cupertino, we see the same mix of older attached garages with tired floors and new garages going in with remodels.