Thread: new garage/shed ideas for floor

You could spend that money on more tools by leaving it bare concrete.
Cheers,
Geoff.

Originally Posted by Boringgeoff

You could spend that money on more tools by leaving it bare concrete.
Cheers,
Geoff.

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Originally Posted by Boringgeoff

You could spend that money on more tools by leaving it bare concrete.
Cheers,
Geoff.

I'm changing my view on this. That is I'm viewing the floor as another tool. I currently don't have any floor that is flat. Which creates various problems. As time goes on this has become more frustrating. By considering the floor in the future shed as a tool, then I have a different attitude to it.

dave brings up a good point, until I get over there again I have no real idea how "flat" the floor is, and most of the epoxy mobs state that they help hide the imperfections.


I'm still in between epoxy and some sort of carpet squares. I keep thinking about how much I roll stuff, and its really..... its not that often. the idea of a softer floor is really starting to appeal to me. Might just mean some extra vacuuming. But softer under foot, maybe a tiny bit warmer, a bit of noise dampening etc etc and quite cheap. I could still trial the carpet and if I hate it in a years time get the epoxy done.

Originally Posted by havabeer69

dave brings up a good point, until I get over there again I have no real idea how "flat" the floor is, and most of the epoxy mobs state that they help hide the imperfections.


I'm still in between epoxy and some sort of carpet squares. I keep thinking about how much I roll stuff, and its really..... its not that often. the idea of a softer floor is really starting to appeal to me. Might just mean some extra vacuuming. But softer under foot, maybe a tiny bit warmer, a bit of noise dampening etc etc and quite cheap. I could still trial the carpet and if I hate it in a years time get the epoxy done.

If you want something soft underfoot get yourself a decent pair of supportive walking shoes.
Carpets are the devil - they generate dust just sitting there and actually make more dust when you walk or roll things on them,
We've ripped out all the carpets in our house but we have dogs, goodness knows what teh dust levels would be like if we had both.

go the bunnies grab some of their interlocking rubber mats, soft underfoot, esp after a day at the lathe, if you need to shift something pull a few apart, move the trolley/bench and clip back together.
If you then dont like then yours or a neighbours kids will enjoy them in their cubby house.

Personally I'd keep the gym stuff separate to the woodworking. I'd minimise exposure to wood dust as much as possible so IMO huffing and puffing in am area that may be contaminated might not be the best.
In terms of flooring epoxy looks nicest but for a workshop polished concrete also works just as well.

If you are going to have a gym area get some good quality gym rubber mats. That are firm and provide the support needed. Don't use Eva foam for gym areas.

Originally Posted by BobL

If you want something soft underfoot get yourself a decent pair of supportive walking shoes.
Carpets are the devil - they generate dust just sitting there and actually make more dust when you walk or roll things on them,
We've ripped out all the carpets in our house but we have dogs, goodness knows what teh dust levels would be like if we had both.

you and my wife would get on well Bob, she hates carpet and luckily the place we're moving into has none. blackbutt floors up stairs and cork tiles downstairs. cork will be great as the kids can trash it while they're young and we'll replace it with something a bit nicer later on.

but the carpet i'm talking about is that officey style carpet tile stuff
Standard Carpet 100 x 100cm Sigma Polypropylene Carpet Tile - Bunnings Australia

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would have to remember to put something down if I was doing any welding

I think I am going to give the carpet squares a trial run.


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As they won't be glued down its not a huge issue to get rid of them, 2nd hand ones are also cheap.... $2 each so could do the whole area for under $100 and have a heap of spares. the Bunnings $19 ones at 1m2 would be an easier install though but $800

$200 and enough carpet to fill a 70's stick book

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Re. epoxy, we have just rebuilt on the original slab after losing the house in the bushfires of Jan 2020 - the slab was OK to re-use because it was solid concrete with no polystyrene pods in it (which would have melted). During the course of demolition there was a big machine working from the garage floor, so the concrete slab there got a few dings in it. We had a professional epoxy guy (who does a lot of commercial work) fix the floor up.

Process was to fill any deeper dents, then a light surface grind of the entire floor. Next was a thin layer of Ardex to level everything up, then coloured epoxy (with flake) and a final clear coat over that. We've been back in the house about 12 months now, and the epoxy floor is showing no signs of wear or marking from vehicles. Very happy with the job. A couple of points to note

- The professional epoxy work is nothing like the kits you can get from Bunnies to do it yourself. For a start, they'd never be allowed to sell stuff with those levels of solvent in it to the general public - people would be dropping like flies.
- The surface finish is VERY hard. I'd expect no recoating needed for at least 5 years, and even then probably only the top clear coat.
- The solvent smell is overpowering for many weeks after the job is done. We left the garage door open for 3 weeks after the job finished to ventilate it, but even 4-6 weeks later you could still smell the stuff. All gone now, thankfully.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

Re. epoxy, we have just rebuilt on the original slab after losing the house in the bushfires of Jan 2020 - the slab was OK to re-use because it was solid concrete with no polystyrene pods in it (which would have melted). During the course of demolition there was a big machine working from the garage floor, so the concrete slab there got a few dings in it. We had a professional epoxy guy (who does a lot of commercial work) fix the floor up.

Process was to fill any deeper dents, then a light surface grind of the entire floor. Next was a thin layer of Ardex to level everything up, then coloured epoxy (with flake) and a final clear coat over that. We've been back in the house about 12 months now, and the epoxy floor is showing no signs of wear or marking from vehicles. Very happy with the job. A couple of points to note

- The professional epoxy work is nothing like the kits you can get from Bunnies to do it yourself. For a start, they'd never be allowed to sell stuff with those levels of solvent in it to the general public - people would be dropping like flies.
- The surface finish is VERY hard. I'd expect no recoating needed for at least 5 years, and even then probably only the top clear coat.
- The solvent smell is overpowering for many weeks after the job is done. We left the garage door open for 3 weeks after the job finished to ventilate it, but even 4-6 weeks later you could still smell the stuff. All gone now, thankfully.

Slightly O/T but we’re you told by an engineer that the slab was ok because it was not a pod slab? Curious to know because the polystyrene pods are just sacrificial formwork and not structural themselves. I am not an engineer but would of thought it irrelevant

The slab had to be certified by an engineer as part of the insurance claim process. Luckily the plastic drain penetrations hadn't melted too far down below slab level, so were recoverable. The original house was built about 20 years ago (by us) at a time when pods were only just starting to be widely used, and the slab is massively over-engineered with deep beams, etc.

These days the concrete cover over pods can be as little as 100mm, and that's assuming it has been done properly. I've seen instances where there is only 75mm of concrete thickness over the pods. The guy doing our demolition had already done work on more modern houses where the slab was a write off after the pods had melted. This was a HOT fire - we found aluminium items that had been reduced to a puddle of metal. If you drive a 30 Tonne demolition excavator onto a slab with melted pods inside it, I can guarantee that it will go straight through the top layer of concrete !

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

The slab had to be certified by an engineer as part of the insurance claim process. Luckily the plastic drain penetrations hadn't melted too far down below slab level, so were recoverable. The original house was built about 20 years ago (by us) at a time when pods were only just starting to be widely used, and the slab is massively over-engineered with deep beams, etc.

These days the concrete cover over pods can be as little as 100mm, and that's assuming it has been done properly. I've seen instances where there is only 75mm of concrete thickness over the pods. The guy doing our demolition had already done work on more modern houses where the slab was a write off after the pods had melted. This was a HOT fire - we found aluminium items that had been reduced to a puddle of metal. If you drive a 30 Tonne demolition excavator onto a slab with melted pods inside it, I can guarantee that it will go straight through the top layer of concrete !

I think you may have been misinformed on here say rather than the facts on the different between the two slab type, the same sort of people will also tell you copper pipe is better than plastic for your plumbing too.
. waffle pod slabs are typically designed with 85mm of concrete over the low density styrene pod with has no structural capacity in itself, the pods are made to be just strong enough to support being walked on during construction for practical reasons not structural ones. The pods are typically 1050mm square so the concrete is not spanning a large area and as a result you end up with a grid of 310mm deep by 120 mm wide beams across the entire slab with additional thickenings and support where needed as deemed appropriate by the designing engineer. One aspect of the pod is to save the expense of using concrete where it has no structural value, the other more critical aspect is to stop a slab failing from highly reactive soils breaking the slabs back which was common in the early slab on ground slabs in western Sydney back in the day
Waffle pods slabs are not around because they are cheaper, in fact they cost the same per m2 as a conventional raft slab, the reason they came into play is because conventional concrete slabs were failing in highly reactive clay foundations due to the volition nature of expansion and contraction.
With a waffle pod slab when the clay heaves the pressure is taken up in the pod rather than pushing the whole slab up of a conventional slab unless it had additional integral beams designed to compact this.There design also allowed you to economically have pairs to pride footing support in dealer more stable foundation material.Even in straight sand piers are used to provide a more stable base

A waffle pod slab may well succumb to the heat of a fire before a conventional but not because of a melted pod. Most likely the slabs regardless of construction type that were deemed unsuitable for reuse were damaged by the demolition contractors.
In most cases if a project home builder was engaged to do the rebuild it would of been more cost effective to remove the slab and start with a clean slate.