Garage floor concrete in Orinda CA - a slab that sits level and sheds water

Most folks call us because the floor looks rough, and the first job is figuring out whether it's just worn on top or moving underneath, since that decides everything else. The price mostly comes down to the size of the garage, whether the old floor has to come out and get hauled away, and how much base work it needs. The schedule turns on whether your job needs a permit and how long the new concrete has to cure before you park on it. I'll walk your floor with you and put what's included in writing, so you're not guessing at any of it.

First I figure out whether your floor has actually settled or just looks tired, because a coating over a sunken panel only cracks again, and there's no sense painting a barn that's leaning. If the floor needs replacing, our crew breaks out the old concrete, digs down to the subgrade, the layer the new slab will sit on, and packs the base firm before anything gets formed. We set the forms so the floor falls toward the door and away from the house, pour and finish the top, then keep the slab damp while it cures, which is the slow hardening that decides how tough the surface turns out. We also cut the control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a straight line to crack along, while the timing is right. If the budget's tight, I'd rather you skip a fancy finish than skimp on the base, because nobody sees the base on pour day, but it's what keeps the floor flat for years.

Once the floor is sound, decorative concrete like a colored or stained finish is a good way to dress it up. And if a leaning wall beside the driveway is letting dirt wash toward your garage door, we build concrete retaining walls too.

Orinda doesn't run its own building department, so Orinda building permits come from the Contra Costa County Building Department, and you need one before anyone builds, alters, repairs or tears down a building or structure. A garage counts as a building, so a floor job can fall under that rule, and projects that need a building permit also need the city's Planning Department to approve the zoning unless the work is on the city's exempt list. The county handles the inspections. When your job needs a permit, we pull it as your contractor and take care of the paperwork and inspection calls for our part, and I check with the right office on your floor before we start rather than guess.

A lot of the garages I walk into around here have the original floor, worn down by years of cars, drips and whatever water comes in under the door. The question is nearly the same every time, whether a panel has dropped or the top is just tired, and we make that same call on jobs in Lafayette and Moraga.