My garage always gets water into it when we have rain or a snow melt and I was wondering what do to about it...
The contractor who poured our pad did not put any slope on it, so water just comes in around the doors or from the car and sits on the floor instead of running back out.
Also, the 2x6 walls don't appear to have any gasket material under the bottom plate. The walls are still empty - no insulation or drywall over them. Outside is sheathed and covered in vinyl siding.
The pad is 24'x32' and we've got three single doors on the north side.
Is there any way to keep the water from coming in the doors that won't interfere with their operation?
Is having no gasket under the bottom plate a big issue or will sealing along the inside seam with caulk take care of the small amounts of water we get in under the walls? The pad is very close to ground level so it doesn't take much snow for the melt to come under the walls. Rain isn't much of an issue.
If you have any area to discharge to, cutting out a couple of inches in front of the doors and installing a grate and drain may be your only reasonable option. I take it the contractor isn't willing to try to "make it right"? Hard to believe an competent contractor would argue that job has been done correctly.
Typically, you don't put any gasketing under the bottom plates, but they
*should* be PT wood if they're touching the concrete.
Is the site wet, as in ground water? Are you heating the garage? Was there visqueen put down below the slab? Is there perimeter drainage? Where do the gutter splashblock go? How long ago was it poured?
There are many things that can make or keep a slab wet, most of them are not contractor related.
An almost grade-level slab, and no perimeter masonry stub walls (usually concrete block) under the frame walls? In other works, your garage is just sitting on a flat slab? No wonder it is wet inside. Any blown rain will come in right under wall, once felt or whatever fails. At a minimum, I'd dig a slit trench around the outside, maybe a foot wide and deep, and fill it with gravel, and provide a low spot if possible for water to drain to from the trench. It could be oozing up right through slab- once it is wet, nowhere for it to go downhill to. Other posters are right- design flaws galore here.
I know it wouldn't be practical, but if cost was no object, something like this would piss me off enough to jack up garage and pour a proper sloped and drained slab, with footings, under it, and then set garage back down. Garage floors up here in the northland are poured after garage is built, and the slab rests on ledge of the footings and/or foundation for the perimeter wall. By local standards, what you have is a walled-in carport. Don't caulk the inside of the sill plate- that will just keep the sills wet forever, and even pressure-treated won't hold up under that. Do something on the outside to keep water out.
I glued a strip of 2" x 1/2" wood on the floor and let the garage door sit on it to get it aligned and to squeeze down the glue. The glue should form a watertight seal. In anycase seal the seam with latex or silicone caulk. That 1/2 in strip should form enough of a barrier to keep the water from seeping in.
From what you described, I'd suggest the following. This does not of course do a complete repair, but I would think replacing the whole slab is out of the question.
#1. Caulk around all the walls, but ONLY on the outside. Use 100% pure silicone only, not regular caulk. Personally, (assuming the walls are attached to the floor with bolts embedded in the concrete with nuts on top of the bottom plate), I'd loosen all the nuts about
1/2". Then drive a wedge under the walls from the inside (such as a prybar). Lift the wall 1/8" to 1/4". Now go outside and fill that gap with the silicone. Go back inside and remove the wedge and put in another wedge about 4 feet away. IN OTHER WORDS, start at a corner and use 2 wedges at a time, about 4 feet apart. Go outside and caulk between those two wedges. Come back inside, leave the wedge that is 4 feet from the corner, but move the one on the corner 8 feet from the corner, etc etc. Do this all the way around the garage, then retighten all the nuts. You will end up with a good oozing bead of silicone all the way around. and no water will seep in at the walls. Be sure to also caulk whereever two 2x4 (or 2x6) plates meet to seal the gap between them.
#2. The door problem will not be as easy. I'd put a rubber seal on the bottom of each door but that dont stop the water completely. You best solution would be to build some sort of awning/overhang above the doors. That will stop most rain from hitting the door. As far as snow melt, you are pretty much stuck, unless you use a concrete saw and cut a section of concrete out in front of the doors and install a grate, or repour the concrete with a dip all the way across.
#3 If there is an actual low spot in the floor, you could possibly cut away a section of floor and put drain tile under it, with a sewer at the lowest point. Run the drain tile out to lower point outside.
A bit unusual to pour a slab, meant for a building, not to be 6" above grade for the finish surface at its lowest point. Read over your replies to others. The slab is about 4 years old. Yet, the garage was built 1.5 years ago. In the interim, between the garage slab and the garage building erection, something may have happened. An overzealouz landscaper may have added topsoil, and as a consequence, the lack of above ground clearance as an example.. This is not the fault of the contractor who built the garage. If the slab holds the same top surface to soil grade as when is was poured, there may be a detail or two that the slab contractor and owner failed to communicate to each other.
Slab sounds like a basic flat, level +/- 1/8". No provision for a car to drive into, no downsloped apron. So, don't see any problem except that what was allowed by the person who orginally contracted the slab.
#15 building felt is commonly used under the bottom (sill) plate before erecting the walls. Gonna be fun trying to get that under there now.
Vinyl siding is loosely attached to walls. Was not meant to keep out water in the form of melted snow pressed against the vinyl siding. Its needs a continuous vapor barrier between the vinyl siding and the sheathing.
The bottom of the outside wall "should" be at least 6" above the ground. Otherwise you could end up with rot and/or water damage in the future. Still, having said that, I've got a shed that sits about 4" above ground and is still in perfect shape after 15 years.
The ideal option would be to jack up the garage, tear out the slab, and repour a new one. But, that's a lot of work, and a lot of expense.
Second option might be to jack up the garage, and pour a small perimeter wall around the perimeter (or mortar in a row of concrete block). Then add a layer of sill sealer, and lower the garage back down. I'd apply a waterproofer to the outside of the block wall to minimize water seepage.
The siding should also overlap the foundation by an inch or so. Any rain that runs down the wall will drop off onto the ground and not follow the bottom edge under the wall.
A cheap alternative would be to caulk on the OUTSIDE of the wall at that gap. You don't want to trap water under the wall, so don't caulk on the inside.
As for water that finds it's way into the garage from the cars, you could try renting a concrete grinder and grinding a slight slope into the slab. It might be easier to grind shallow "troughs" of sorts that would collect the water and direct it out under the garage doors. I did something similar on my own garage where the edge of the slab was higher than the sloped floor. Water would pool right inside the garage doors. I used a 7" hand grinder to bevel the front 8" or so, and haven't had any problems since. You can rent large walk-behind grinders at most rental stores for big jobs like yours.
On the outside of the building, do anything you can to get the water away from the garage. Slope the ground away from the garage, install a perimeter drain system to direct the water away, etc. Obviously, good gutters will help a lot if they drain out away from the garage.
As for the garage doors, they should have rubber seals on the bottom where they contact the floor. Assuming this is the case and you still get leakage, they do make rubber seals you can apply to the floor (search for "garage door seal" on Google). The door comes down and sits on the seal and any rain that makes it under the door gets directed out. The biggest problem I see with these is any water that is in the garage (i.e. from the cars) won't be able to drain out either.
If you get leakage around a walk-in entry door, you could add a storm door on the outside. This will help protect the opening and direct water away before it has a chance to seep in the door. You could also build a small roof over the door to shield it from the weather.
All true... Bad planning on my part. I would have expected the contractor to point out any flaws in my plan, but I assume he just did what he was told.
I know this now... I've even considered digging around the garage and pouring a footing around it... making the current floor a floating floor. Still would need to find some way to seal this and joint between the current slap and new "footing".
Not really a footing since nothing would be resting on top of it. Top would be sloped to run water away from the building. Wood walls would still go down to the slab though.
-regrade and relevel the drive and adjacent ground [better, all around the slab]
-install surface [+roof?] drainage
I guess an additional sloped cement screed would not be durable at this minimal thickness. Perhaps you can find locally a liquid application floor finish that can be built up to make a slope?
If you have any house wrap laying around, take a real close look at it. Its woven plastic. Now, imagine water type hydraulic pressure from the side if this housewrap is on the walls. Not hard to believe this water is seeping in.
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