How to smooth a concrete garage floor

[DaveCWK]

I have a single garage attached to my house with a concrete floor - the surface is very rough and covered in ridges. They are quite large - for example a car jack does not roll over them at all when jacking the car up. I think there is a term for this finish but it escapes me right now. It is really uncomfortable to work on and very dusty.

Does anyone know how I go about smoothing it out?

I'd love a super smooth floor with an epoxy finish, like you find in warehouses.

[RYH64E]

If it's that bad I'd tile it. You can hire concrete grinders, they're a bit like a floor polisher but with rotating carborundum blocks, but getting a flat finish on a rippled surface will be a ball ache.

[D_G]

It might be possible to screed it, I've just powerfloated a new pour and the finish is great. I'm told trying it on a cured floor isn't possible, can only be done when it's going off.

[Drumroll]

Sounds like you have a tamp finish in your garage. (why anyone would do that I don't know) cheapest option is to screed over it, but the problem with that is that is likely to crack. You could get the surface ground down and then apply a screed. but that could get expensive and would be messy. Another option is to cut out the existing floor and lay a new one.

[TA14]

RYH64E said:

If it's that bad I'd tile it. You can hire concrete grinders, they're a bit like a floor polisher but with rotating carborundum blocks, but getting a flat finish on a rippled surface will be a ball ache.

People don't usually have the room to install 100mm of screed. You can put down a self levelling screed, eg: http://www.watco.co.uk/watco-flowtop.html but they're not cheap so I'd tend to agree with RYH and tile it.

[dsl2]

Hire in a 200mm Diamond floor grinder that will make short work of the ridges, leaving you with a nicely keyed in floor surface you can paint if you wish.

[Hard-Drive]

I'd lay interlocking plastic floor tiles. I've just done exactly that on my new build and it looks great. There's enough give in the "finned" finish under the tiles to allow for the tamper screed ridges. Probably cost you about £250 and an afternoon's work.

[Pan Pan Pan]

Tarmac building products do a product called Flo-Screed, which is poured onto a suitably shuttered / edged floor to contain it, and dries to a smooth hard (and obviously level) surface. (It is the consistency of milk when it is poured in) downside is, it requires a special mixing machine / screed pump to apply, so cannot really be done by a DIYer, as it needs to be done in one pour.

[V8RX7]

Are people saying that the simple latex self leveling won't work because it's a garage ?

I haven't had experience using it on a garage floor but I've had no issues using it inside a house.

[Spudler]

Hard-Drive said:

I'd lay interlocking plastic floor tiles.

Probably the best option.

Even if op tiled the floor he'd have to grind the top layer back.
If he does that then he's got a nice finished floor anyway.
So two options then.

[roofer]

V8RX7 said:

Are people saying that the simple latex self leveling won't work because it's a garage ?

I haven't had experience using it on a garage floor but I've had no issues using it inside a house.

With a car on a jack ? No.

[shedweller]

I did this job on my garage about 2yrs ago, It was roughy tamped in the same way.

I used setcrete high performance levelling compound from wickes.

1. Buy more than you think you need
2. Rent a proper mixer, a normal drill isn't up to it
3. Have at least 3 plaster mixing buckets and pre measure the water
4. Seal the floor with a primer - really well as the concrete will suck the water out otherwise and it won't level as well.

You need two people, one to mix and one to pour and tickle it with a float - speed is of the essence, Ideally you want a fresh mix to pour in the time it takes to mix (2min)


Mines been down 2yrs, painted with epoxy floor paint and has had numerous vehicles jacked up on it..

[dsl2]

Or at the risk of repeating myself you could just grind the exisitng surface down as mentioned above with a diamond floor grinder cost you approx £150 + VAT done in a couple of hours tops, as opposed to a half days work with the screed at whatever that costs to do it properly...

[RYH64E]

dsl2 said:

Or at the risk of repeating myself you could just grind the exisitng surface down as mentioned above with a diamond floor grinder cost you approx £150 + VAT done in a couple of hours tops, as opposed to a half days work with the screed at whatever that costs to do it properly...

Grinding concrete is a dirty, noisy, horrible job, and you can't easily get into the corners or close to the edges. I had one of the lads who works for me grind a floor flat in an area I was preparing to use as a manufacturing zone, it isn't something I'd do again.

[TA14]

RYH64E said:

dsl2 said:

Or at the risk of repeating myself you could just grind the exisitng surface down as mentioned above with a diamond floor grinder cost you approx £150 + VAT done in a couple of hours tops, as opposed to a half days work with the screed at whatever that costs to do it properly...

Grinding concrete is a dirty, noisy, horrible job, and you can't easily get into the corners or close to the edges. I had one of the lads who works for me grind a floor flat in an area I was preparing to use as a manufacturing zone, it isn't something I'd do again.

+1
If someone can grind a tamped slab flat in a couple of hours I'd say you could run a good business just on PH posters. Jet wash and then tile adhesive sounds a lot easier to me.

[lewisco]

I had a similar problem. Went from this



to this using Stopgap 200.


(sorry no pic of the garage empty)

[8-P]

Looks good, glad I saw this before painting my floor

[dsl2]

When you own a tool hire company its easy! The 200mm machine for the larger area with diamond cup fitted would take well under an hour for a single garage, he's only removing ridges from what I recall of the original post / Dry vac to remove the dust & 5in hand held diamond planer for the edges will get you with 5mm or so of the wall but admittedly is a bit of a ball ache as would need to be done on your knees for an hour or so.

[DaveCWK]

Thanks all, lots to think about.
I was going to take pictures but the surface is exactly as those posted above by lewisco!

I did think about tiling, but surely if the floor is covered in ridges, when I jack on the tiles it is likely they will sag/crack as they will not be uniformly supported from underneath?

I think I'm leaning towards a screed/stopgap/levelling compound - especially as the floor appears completely level with the tarmac outside so raising it slightly wouldn't be a bad idea.

Lewisco - have you used a jack on that surface - is it as hard as the original concrete?

[RYH64E]

DaveCWK said:

Thanks all, lots to think about.
I was going to take pictures but the surface is exactly as those posted above by lewisco!

I did think about tiling, but surely if the floor is covered in ridges, when I jack on the tiles it is likely they will sag/crack as they will not be uniformly supported from underneath?

I think I'm leaning towards a screed/stopgap/levelling compound - especially as the floor appears completely level with the tarmac outside so raising it slightly wouldn't be a bad idea.

Lewisco - have you used a jack on that surface - is it as hard as the original concrete?

Personally, as I've said before, I'd tile it using a nice deep bed of floor tile adhesive so that the tile is well supported, if I was in any doubt I'd screed it first. My garage floor is nice and flat but I'm thinking of tiling it anyway.