Floor Leveling Compound

If you do that make sure you have a dust muzzle that connects to a shop vac grinding makes a ton of dust and gets everywhere and you don't wanna breath it also use bags in your shop vac concrete dust will clog a filter fast and burn out your motor
 
I can take pics of one of my setups if ya want to see what we use
 
Most self leveling cement are an underlayment. They are meant to have a floor covering which is why they are called underlayment. If you go this route make sure you profile the slab to promote adhesion. Also follow the directions for water. If you add more water to make it “flow” you will get a soft surface.
For an exposed surface you want to use a topping product such as Rapidset Tru or Mapei Ultratop. I would again make sure you profile the surface and also use the appropriate epoxy primer with a sand broadcast. Materials run about $1.50 per sf for the topping per 1/4” of depth and the epoxy primer is about $1 per sf. You would still need to seal it with some kind of sealer, topical or penetrating.
Places like White Cap or HD Supply sell this stuff as well as your flooring distributors. I hope this helps.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
ddickey said:
My garage floor was poured in '88. The floor is in okay condition but is unlevel.
I got a quote for a new floor but I wonder if just a leveling compound would work. I thought about an epoxy layer on top but with sharp metals chips probably not a good idea.
Anyone have any experience with this?
Click to expand...

By saying it's "unlevel" do you mean it slopes toward the door, or it's unlevel side to side, or it's just rough and bumpy? If it's just sloped toward the overhead door that's normal. Our house and garage are about the same age as yours. When the garage floor was poured it was intentionally sloped toward the overhead doors. In 34' from the house to the door it slopes about 4". The slope keeps water from melting snow and ice from running toward the house. There are times when I wish it had less slope, but in the winter months it does what it's supposed to do. If you live in an area where there's snow and ice, and you park your cars in the garage I would be cautious as to how level you want the floor to be. You don't want water running toward or pooling under your machines.

Personally when I setup machines I use a transit or level to map out the floor. If machine legs have to be in specific places I determine the difference in height. Then I build the appropriate shim blocks to make sure everything starts out on the same plain. Once the machine is in place it can truly be leveled.

I purchased a David White transit and pole on eBay several years ago for less than $50.00. I originally used it for landscaping and location of satellite dish towers. More recently I use it to determine floor grades and level machinery There are currently several transits and/or tripod levels for sale on eBay for in the $30.00 to $60.00 range. It might be worth your time to buy or rent one just to be sure of the slope and condition of your floor.
 
My house is from 1978 and the garage (my machine shop) has a floor that slopes, as described in the prior post by projectnut. This slope is actually per the building code, so that a water leak (such as from our water heater o washing machine will drain from the garage.
 
Mine slopes about 2.5". I was talking about waviness. A guy is coming out on Monday with a laser. I assume like what Projectnut was talking about a laser transit. I will have more info then. I will ask him what product he intends to use if I decide to do this. My truck won't fit in my garage but in the future I may sell so I guess it should continue to have a slope.
So that leads me to another question. If you use leveler how would you get the slope?
 
"I was talking about waviness" how wavy? Pleas post pictures if you can.
Another approach, the one I used in my basement shop, is to grind off the high spots then fill in the lows with a troweled on concrete patching mix bonds to the substrate with concrete bonding admixture, let cure then grind again to smooth it all out. I used a floor buffer fitted with a 10" diamond cup wheel. I own the buffer but you can rent them with the grinding attachment. It's a lot of work but will give better results then the "self leveling" compounds. Those products, as said above, are only an underlayment, not a finished surface.
 
Wavy/not flat in the sense that if I lay down a 4' level it is raised an inch at the end of it. Not sure if a pic would show anything.
 
ddickey said:
Wavy/not flat in the sense that if I lay down a 4' level it is raised an inch at the end of it. Not sure if a pic would show anything.
Click to expand...
Yeah that sounds pretty bad. you might have to pour a couple of inches over the whole floor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top