Hey Guys,
I plan to start building a much nicer garage for my vette this summer. I want to at least lay down a cement floor and put up some walls and some sort of exterior. Nothing too expensive. That'll be much better than the small carriage barn that its in now. I was wondering if anyone had some estimates on how much a cement floor would be... any size.. I don't have anything set yet. Big enough to pull the car in and have a good amount of working space.

Don't know what cement prices are in your area, but here in PA for the homeowner, it averages about $145 per square yard. I had my garage built and I bet it took at least 5-6 yards. Of course it is 24x30 so it is big. Hope this kind of helped. Also, built it larger than you think you will need. It will be better, trust me.

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely make sure its big enough!!!

I agree with Chris. I also live in Penna and even local prices vary like crazy. Like you, I am also getting a garage built this year ( actually it supposedly starts the 23rd of April ). I received estimates for a 24x40 structure that ranged from 17.5 k to a whopping 134 K. Some of these contractors are obviously nuts.
Anyhow, the point is shop around and around and around, sure you will get dizzy but you will have enough money left to go the the doctor and get something done about it :-).
I spent almost a year but I ended up with a price of 17.5 for 24x40, 4 inches of stone under 6 inches of concrete, sided, shingled, two windows, one 18 foot door and a three foot retaining wall around 3 sides of the structure to retain the back yard from joining my Vette inside the garage. The prices are out there.
Best of luck to ya....make a nice 2 or 3 car garage with black and white tile floors, plenty of light and mirrors ( your Vette will like to look at itself ).

One thing I would like to add to this. A good friend of mine, built his garage with plastic water lines poured in the concrete. They were tied to the reinforcing rods, to hold them in place. After the garage was built, he hooked the water lines up to a closed system with anti freeze and a water heater with a small pump. He heats the whole garage with a 30 gal water heater. Of course the room temperature is on a thermostat. It turns on the pump to run the water, which in turn, turns on the waterheater, to heat the water. Very simple, and cheap to operate. He has an expansion tank on top of the waterheater to take care of excess pressure. It can be left on about 60 deg. all winter, warmer if necess.
Just think, on a cold winter day, you go out to the garage, and lay down on a nice warm floor to work on a muffler or something like that. Much better than laying on a freezing floor....In fact, you might have to lower the temp to keep from sweating...

Chris,
You need to come down this way to get cement. I just used about 25 yards to do my garage. It cost $82.50 a yard and the general contractor was complaining about how much it cost ! I had the cement sprayed with some clear oil based stuff. It looks great ! It is water, oil , etc resistant. I forget the name of it. I will ask the general contractor next time I see him. So far everyone in my club that has seen the cement work has changed their minds about using epoxy paint. It would cost about a grand to do my follor in epoxy. This clear stuff is $28.00 a gallon and they did two coats with just under 8 gallons.

Glenn,
Thanks for the info on the clear stuff. I'll look into that after I get my floor poured.

To estimate how much concrete you need is very simple.
Length X wideth= Square feet, divided by 27 and then by the thickness ratio of 12 inches. 4" divide by 3, 6" divide by 2, etc.

Example 24X24= 576 SQ FT divided by 27 =21.33 divided by 3 (4" thick) = 7.11 yds.

Your garage with a 4 " thick @ 3,000lbs. your floor will be more than strong enough.

I would suggest 4" of crushed stone and Polyethelyne between stone and concrete.
I don't think I would go to the expense of re-inforcing with 6X6 wire.

In your location I would think that $100- $125 per yard would be about right. I know that seems to be the cost across the River in Wilmington.

Thanks a lot Dutch. My goal was to have it done by the end of June. Unfortunately things never go that easily. Trouble with my truck and now my vette has forced me to wait until who knows when to finally lay some concrete. It'll probably be just in time for me to go back to school so I can't enjoy it at all this summer. Eventually I'll get to it. I need it really bad.

Boy, the price of concrete out East is really up there.. I think ours is about $60-$65 a yard. For the last ten years or so, there is an add-on of fiberglass strands, that make the concrete much stronger. It used to cost $5 a yard extra. Don't know how much now. A concrete contracter once told me that the only thing he would guarantee, was that the concrete would crack... And he was right. Any good sized slab will crack, sooner or later, guaranteed...


|QUOTE|Dutch said: To estimate how much concrete you need is very simple.
Length X wideth= Square feet, divided by 27 and then by the thickness ratio of 12 inches. 4" divide by 3, 6" divide by 2, etc.

Example 24X24= 576 SQ FT divided by 27 =21.33 divided by 3 (4" thick) = 7.11 yds.

Your garage with a 4 " thick @ 3,000lbs. your floor will be more than strong enough.

I would suggest 4" of crushed stone and Polyethelyne between stone and concrete.
I don't think I would go to the expense of re-inforcing with 6X6 wire.

In your location I would think that $100- $125 per yard would be about right. I know that seems to be the cost across the River in Wilmington.|/QUOTE|