Garage floor concrete in La Palma CA - a floor that drains out and holds up

Most calls start with a crack running across the floor, a corner that's sunk near the door, or a top that's chipping and dusty, and the good news is that plenty of those floors don't need to come out. What moves the price is how much floor you have, whether the old slab gets broken out and hauled off, how much the base underneath needs fixing, and any finish or coating you want. The schedule mostly turns on the curing wait and, if your job needs a permit, the city's inspection calendar. If only one section is bad, we can sometimes cut out just that piece and pour it back. Once I've looked at your floor, I'll give you your own figures in a written estimate.

The first thing I do is check whether the slab is still moving, because a floor that's still settling will crack a patch or an overlay right along with it, and that tells me whether to suggest a repair, an overlay or a new floor. On a new floor, our crew breaks out the old concrete and hauls it away. Then we dig out and pack the subgrade, the dirt and base the slab sits on, so the new floor doesn't settle the way it would on a base that was just raked level. We set the forms so the floor falls toward the garage door and water runs out instead of toward the house. We plan the pour for the cooler part of the day, since a slab placed in midday heat tends to end up with a weak, dusty top. After finishing, we cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a planned place to crack, before it has a chance to pick its own spot. Then it cures, which is the wait while it gains strength before you load it up. If the budget gets tight, the base is the last thing I'd cut, because you can't see it on day one but it decides whether your floor stays flat.

If you might coat the floor with epoxy later, tell us before the pour. A vapor barrier maker's summary of industry guidance says to use a barrier under a slab that will get a moisture-sensitive coating like epoxy, and that's hard to add once the concrete is in. Some people want more than plain gray, and our decorative concrete work covers stained and polished finishes for a garage that doubles as a shop or gym. When the garage sits at the bottom of a slope or the driveway is cut into a grade, a concrete retaining wall can hold the soil back and keep runoff off the new floor.

Whether your garage floor job needs a permit depends on the work, and I check that instead of guessing, because replacing a whole slab is a different job from patching one corner. When a job needs a permit, we handle the application with the city, which issues permits online and has staff at the permit counter in City Hall to help applicants. We also book the inspections. La Palma runs building inspections Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to noon, with none on Fridays, and they generally need 24 hours' notice, so we plan the pour around that calendar. Some inspections need you there and some don't, and we'll tell you ahead of time if you need to be home. If you'd like to ask the city yourself, the building staff take questions at building@lapalmaca.gov or 714-690-3340.

Many of the garage floors I look at here are the original slabs on older homes, with a crack or two across the middle, a dip near the door where water sits, and oil worn into the top. Garage slabs on Orange County homes sit at the thicker end of the standard range for home floors, so we don't skimp on depth when we pour a new one, and we see the same kinds of floors on jobs in Cypress and Buena Park.