Garage floor concrete in Pembroke Pines FL - a surface that drains and wears well

Most calls start with an old floor that's cracked, flaking, sunk at one corner or holding a puddle by the door after a storm. The price mostly moves with the size of the garage, whether the old slab has to be broken out and hauled away, and how much base work it needs underneath, and if the old floor has to be cut cleanly at the house door, that's a job for concrete cutting. The schedule turns on the weather, whether a permit question has to be settled first and the wait before you can park on it again, and your own figure comes from the estimate, once I've seen the garage. We're based in Pembroke Pines and work across the cities around it in Broward and Miami-Dade.

If there's an old floor, we break it out and haul it off first, then dig out anything soft and pack the subgrade, the dirt and stone the slab sits on, because a floor only stays flat as long as what's under it does. Before we pour, I go over with you what goes under the slab to keep ground moisture from coming up, since that's often why an older garage feels damp or leaves stains under stored boxes. We set the forms so the floor falls toward the door and away from the house, and we add rebar, steel inside the slab that holds it together if it cracks, where the job calls for it. I'll be straight with you that a new floor can still show some cracking, so the part I watch closest is timing, finishing the surface once it's firm enough and cutting control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a straight line to crack along, before it cracks on its own. Then we keep it from drying out too fast while it cures, which is the stretch where it gains the strength to carry a car. If the budget gets tight, I'd rather you skip a fancy finish than skimp on the base, because nobody sees the base on day one and everybody sees it when the floor sinks.

Some homeowners want the concrete around the garage to match the rest of the house, and that's where decorative concrete comes in for the driveway or entry next to it. If the ground beside your garage or driveway needs holding back, we build concrete retaining walls too, and it's worth planning that before the new floor goes in so water off the wall has somewhere to go besides your garage.

The city's Building Department requires permits for most construction, and its list names structural changes and additions, not garage floors, while it generally exempts replacing flooring when nothing structural changes. That leaves a new garage slab unsettled, so I won't assume either way. The city asks you to check with it before starting work when you're unsure, and that's what we do before anything starts, and when a permit is needed we take care of the application and the paperwork as part of the job. It matters because the city says starting without a required permit can bring stop work orders, fines, delays and extra cost to correct the work. The city also wants a contractor registered with it before pulling a permit, which is worth asking about before you hire anyone.

The garages we see here and on jobs in Miramar and Davie are mostly attached to the house, with the floor a step below the house door and a little above the driveway. We set the new floor so it meets that door and still falls toward the driveway, which keeps heavy afternoon rain that blows in from running back toward the house.