Your garage floor takes more abuse than any other slab on your property. All winter the car hauls in slush and road salt, parks in the same two tracks, and leaves it there to melt and soak in. If the floor is cracked, pitted, flaking, or sinking toward the door, we handle garage floor repair in Wausau, WI, from sealing a single crack to tearing out the slab and pouring a new one. Call 715-814-9520 or use the form at the top of this page and we'll come take a look.
Concrete garage floor repair is not one job. Some floors need an afternoon of crack repair. Some need a new surface. Some are past saving, and the honest answer is a new slab. The expensive fix is not always the right one, so we look at the concrete, what is under it, and where the water goes before we recommend anything.
Cracked, Pitted, or Sunken Garage Floor? What We Fix
Cracked Garage Floor
Almost every garage floor has a crack somewhere. Thin, tight cracks that have not changed in years are usually shrinkage from when the slab first cured. They are mostly a matter of looks and of keeping water and salt out. The ones to worry about are wide, getting wider, or higher on one side than the other. That kind of cracked garage floor is telling you the ground underneath has moved.
Pitted Garage Floor and Spalling Concrete
Pitting starts where the tires sit. Salt water soaks into the top of the slab, freezes, and pops the surface loose a little at a time. After enough Wausau winters you have a rough, crumbling patch under each wheel and a floor that never sweeps clean. The concrete below the damage is often still sound, which is good news. A pitted garage floor that is solid underneath can usually be saved.
Sunken Garage Floor
Garage floors are poured over fill, and fill settles, most often along the foundation walls and at the overhead door. You see it as a lip at the door, a floor that tilts toward one corner, or meltwater that pools in the middle instead of running out. A sunken garage floor is a base problem first and a concrete problem second.
Broken Garage Door Apron
The strip of concrete right outside the garage door takes plow blades, frost, and every tire that turns in. It often fails before the garage floor or the concrete driveway does, and it can be replaced on its own.
Concrete Garage Floor Repair Options
Garage Floor Crack Repair
We open the crack up clean, fill it with a repair material made for concrete slabs, and finish it flush so a creeper or a floor jack rolls right over it. Garage floor crack repair keeps water and salt out of the slab and stops the edges from chipping away. It will not make the crack disappear. A repaired crack is still a visible line unless the whole floor gets a new surface.
Garage Floor Resurfacing
Resurfacing puts a new, thin layer of concrete over the old slab. We grind off the loose, salt-damaged surface, repair the cracks and low spots, then bond the new topping to what is left and finish it. Garage floor resurfacing is the right call for a floor that is pitted or worn on top but solid underneath. It is the wrong call for a slab that is still moving, because the new surface will crack right where the old one did.
Garage Floor Replacement
When the slab is broken into pieces, badly settled, or sitting on a base that has washed out, patching it is money spent twice. For a garage floor replacement we break out the old concrete, haul it away, rebuild and compact the base, and pour a new slab pitched to drain out the door. Thickness and reinforcement get matched to what the floor will carry, whether that is two cars or a loaded truck and a wall of tool chests.
Garage Floor Leveling
If the floor has sunk but the concrete is still in one solid piece, lifting the slab back into place can cost less than replacing it. Garage floor leveling is a different trade from pouring concrete. If we think lifting is the better fix for your floor, we'll tell you that instead of selling you a new slab.
Garage Floor Repair or Replacement: How We Decide
- Is the slab still moving? Cracks with one side higher than the other, or a floor that has dropped since last year, point to the base. Surface repairs do not fix a base problem.
- How much of the surface is damaged? A few pitted spots can be patched. Damage across most of the floor is a resurfacing or replacement job.
- Where does the water go? A floor that holds puddles or drains toward the house keeps feeding the damage. Sometimes the pitch is the real repair.
- What does the garage carry? A floor under a daily driver has an easier life than one holding a plow truck, a lift, or a working shop.
Sometimes the answer is to do less than you expected. A garage floor with a few stable hairline cracks may need nothing more than cleaning and sealing, and we'll say so.