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View Full Version : Pre-stressed concrete panels for a garage floor



Dave Zellers
02-24-2015, 10:35 PM
Anyone have any experience with these?

LOML wants a garage so she isn't scraping ice off her car every morning given this new ice age we seem to be in.

Our lot is a rather steep slope that we terraced when we built the house. So flat spots are precious.

My shop is our entire basement on the lower level with an 8' slider that I can back right up to.

As I've expanded over the years, the walls are closing in on me. I NEED MORE ROOM!

So, we finally get to the point. Two birds, one stone.

There seems to be just enough room to put a garage on the upper level and if I excavated the slope and poured an 8-9 foot high foundation, and used pre-stressed concrete panels for the floor, I would get shop overflow space underneath! WIN, WIN!

This would be a detached garage but only 10' off the corner of the house so also only 10' away from my shop slider. I could move my plywood and rough lumber storage out there and make room for a mistress, AKA, a SuperMax drum sander along with other babes I lust after. But I digress.

For the pre-stressed concrete panels, I'm seeing $10-15 per sq ft installed online. But poured foundation costs would go up to allow for a stepped wall, etc. I've seen this done but I wasn't part of the job so I never learned anything.

Anyway, any insight is appreciated. Oh yeah- I'm only looking to span 20 feet. Small potatoes.

Brian Elfert
02-24-2015, 11:15 PM
My parents have a garage with pre-stressed concrete panels for the floor. Over the years the concrete poured over top of the panels cracked in various places. This is Minnesota so lots of moisture coming off cars in the winter. The water ran down through the cracks and caused mold in the shop underneath. My parents had the floor epoxy coated a few years ago to seal up the cracks.

Dave Zellers
02-24-2015, 11:35 PM
I did read that it was important to put a good slope in the concrete cover towards the door to allow for drainage.

One thing that could be an issue in a cold climate is the stress created by the difference between a heated space below and a frigid garage above. Maybe that caused the cracks?

Then of course once the melting water comes off a car and gets in the cracks and freezes hard it only gets worse.

Howard Pollack
02-24-2015, 11:47 PM
I don't know about what is available generally, but when I was much younger I worked in a place that made pre-stressed concrete beams and panels. They are very strong and tough- the ones we made were used for building sides and as bridges.
-Howard

Brian Elfert
02-25-2015, 7:11 AM
One thing that could be an issue in a cold climate is the stress created by the difference between a heated space below and a frigid garage above. Maybe that caused the cracks?

Then of course once the melting water comes off a car and gets in the cracks and freezes hard it only gets worse.

My dad very rarely uses the shop. It is heated maybe once a winter. The shop is isolated from the house with block walls and a door. It very cold in there in the winter.