Florida
A Garage Is a Structure Left Outside for Fifty Years
No envelope, no conditioning, and no roof over most of it. Rain, salt air and chlorides carried in on tires reach the reinforcement directly, every day, for decades. It is the element of a property that deteriorates first and gets inspected last — and by the time it looks bad, the repair quantity has been growing on an accelerating curve for years.
The structure, its age, and what you have noticed. If there is an engineer's report, send that instead — we will price what it identifies.
Exposed
A garage is a structure left outside for fifty years
Unit rates
Repair quantity is unknowable until it is opened
Parking
Where displaced cars go decides the whole program
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
What we do
What we do
Six kinds of garage work. Each page says what deferring it actually costs.
Concrete Restoration
Salt reaches the reinforcement, the steel corrodes, the corrosion expands, and the concrete breaks away. In a Florida garage it is a matter of when.
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Expansion Joints
Joints allow the structure to move, and they are the most heavily worked and shortest-lived element in a garage.
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Traffic Coatings
A traffic coating keeps water and chlorides off the concrete. Applied correctly it extends structural life substantially; applied over damage it hides it.
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Post-Tensioned Repair
Many Florida garages are post-tensioned, where steel tendons are held in permanent tension inside the concrete. Repair there is a different discipline.
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Drainage
Standing water is the mechanism that carries chlorides into concrete. Fixing drainage is the cheapest structural intervention available.
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New Structures
A new garage is a fifty-year exposure problem. The specification decisions made once determine what the owner spends on restoration for the rest of its life.
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The practical side
The practical side
Displaced parking, phasing, inspection, budgeting and what deferral costs.
Displaced Parking
A garage under repair has fewer spaces. Where the displaced cars go is the question that decides whether the project happens at all.
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Phasing
How the work is divided determines how users experience it and how long the whole thing takes.
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Inspection
A garage assessment should be done by a structural engineer who is not going to do the repairs.
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Budgeting
Garage restoration is predictable in kind and unpredictable in quantity, which makes it a reserve item that almost nobody reserves for.
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The Cost of Deferring
Concrete deterioration is not linear. Once corrosion starts it accelerates, which makes deferral more expensive than it looks.
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The difference
How we work
A garage is the most abused structure a building owns
It has no envelope, no conditioning and no roof over most of it. Rain, salt air, and chlorides carried in on tires reach the reinforcement directly, every day, for decades. It is the element that deteriorates first and gets inspected last.
We price restoration on unit rates, not a lump
Nobody knows how much deteriorated concrete there is until it is opened and sounded. A fixed price before that is either padded or thin, and the second one becomes a change order argument in front of whoever approved the budget.
Solve the parking before you sign anything
A garage under repair has fewer spaces, and the cars that used them have to go somewhere. That is the single most common reason restoration projects stall, and it is the owner's problem rather than the contractor's — which is why it belongs at the start.
We will tell you the coating will not fix it
A traffic coating over unrepaired concrete looks like a completed project and traps the deterioration underneath. It is the cheapest way to pay twice, and it is proposed regularly because it produces a visible result for less money.
Start here
Get a garage assessed
The structure, its age, and what you have noticed. If there is already an engineer's report, send that instead and we will price what it identifies.
We do not assess garages we would then restore. Get the assessment from an independent structural engineer — it is the arrangement an owner should insist on.
FAQ
Common questions
- Why will you not give a fixed price?
- The quantity of deteriorated concrete is unknowable until it is opened and sounded. Unit rates with engineer-verified measured quantities is the honest structure.
- Why does the same area fail again after repair?
- Because chloride-contaminated concrete was left against the steel. Removing only the visible spall is not enough.
- Can a traffic coating fix it?
- No. Over unrepaired concrete it seals moisture in against contaminated material and accelerates what is happening underneath.
- Where do the cars go during the work?
- That is the first question and it is the owner's to solve. Projects stall here more than anywhere else.
- Is ponding actually a problem?
- It is chloride-laden water sitting against concrete for hours after every rain. Ponding areas are always the spalling areas.
- Should you assess our garage?
- No. An independent structural engineer should, with sounding and chloride testing — not a contractor who would then do the repairs.
- How much worse does deferring make it?
- Faster than the delay suggests. Corrosion accelerates once it starts, so five years of deferral is not five years of damage.
- Is falling concrete urgent?
- Yes. Material coming off a soffit above where people walk or park is a safety matter, not a budget matter.
Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.