Garage floor concrete in Carlsbad NM - a slab planned for how you'll use it

Most people call us when the old garage floor is cracked, sinking or holding water, or when they're building a garage and want the floor right the first time. The price turns on the size of the garage, whether old concrete has to come out, how much ground work it needs, how thick the slab has to be and whether you plan on a lift, a coating or heat. The schedule turns on the weather around pour day and the curing wait before you can park on it, and I give you a figure for your own garage at the estimate.

Before we pour, I ask how you'll use the garage, whether that's parking two pickups, a car lift down the road, a coating or heating it later, because those plans change what the slab needs. Then we dig out the soft dirt and any old concrete and pack the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, so it holds the floor up evenly instead of settling, and we pack any utility trenches under it too. We set forms so the floor falls toward the door and water runs out of the garage, not toward the house, and we lay rebar, the steel inside the slab that keeps cracked pieces from pulling apart. One supplier's hot-weather guide says to schedule a pour for a time of day or night when the weather is favorable and to dampen the ground first without leaving puddles, and we plan our pours around the weather. We finish the surface, cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the concrete a straight line to crack along, and go over how we'll cure it, the time we keep it damp and protected while it gains strength, and when it'll be ready to take a coating. If something has to give on the budget, I'd rather trim the finish than the base, because nobody sees the base on day one but it's what decides whether your floor stays flat.

A new garage floor often sits next to other work. When the garage is cut into a slope, a concrete retaining wall holds that ground back so dirt and runoff stay off the new slab, and if you'd like color or a pattern on the apron or the walk to the side door, our decorative concrete work can tie in with the new floor.

In New Mexico, concrete work falls under the state's GS-4 contractor classification, which covers concrete, cement, walkways and driveways. To qualify, a contractor needs two years of hands-on trade experience, one of them at foreman level, so the license tells you the person running your job has led a crew before. Ask for it from anyone who bids your floor, and check it yourself the way we explain in the questions below.

On jobs in Carlsbad and Artesia, a lot of the garages we see hold work pickups and double as a shop, and plenty of owners say they'd like a lift someday. We bring that up early, because it's far easier to plan for a lift now than to cut out a floor that's only a few years old.