Sunday, May 8, 2022

 After rerouting wires to where they are now safely routed thru the studs instead of hanging down over the out side of studs making putting up insulation and drywall impossible. So fter getting the last of the drywall up, yesterday I moved out everything that I could and the rest pushed to one side. Then I mopped and cleaned the cement. After that applied the base coat of cement sealant. I'm using a combo of Ghostshield products. 

Ghostshield: Lithi-Tek 4500 Concrete Sealer/Densifier


and

Siloxa-Tek 8500 Ultra Concentrate

The densifier makes the concrete up to 50-60% stronger, will meake the surface much harder to resist chipping and dusting. It bonds at a molecular level with the cement. This coat takes 7 days to cure before the top coat of 8500 goes on. It will cure in 24 hours to being walked on and  traffic so, today the stuff on the side tat didn't get coated will go tho the treated side and I'll clean and coat this side. If it was less than 24 hours I would have moved it out side but prefer not to have to leave stuff out overnight. The next coat will be 7 days from today with the Siloxa-Tek 8500 concentrate. That product is cured and dry to traffic in a few hours so the whole floor can be done at once. It with make the cement water and asalt resistant to where any spills will float but not penetrate the slab. It is also highly oil repellent giving you time to clean up without staining the slab.
















 Next while the cement cured over the next 30 days, I tore down a big 20 foot long shelf on the right side of the garage as it blocked insulation and drywall which was the next project. Interesting enough the plastic bags holding the insulation bats sweated the floor in a few places that now have darker edges!  I also had a hard time finding the insulation in our hardware and lumber supply chain stores. Gotta say the supply chain right now is pretty much not dependable.







With the shelf out insulation and some extra electrical sockets was next








 Slab was 4.5 inches thick with a slight tapper from back to front for easy water drainage. And for the first time in six years my garage door has no rat entry points!

I went with some black dye to darken slab and better hide any future stains from oil etc.











 All that was under old slab was sand and roots. The slab was literally less than than an inch thick  in places and poured on top if sand. Another two days were digging down deeper and removing a bunch of fairly thick tree roots coming from my neighbors fig tree.

Then adding a base of packed gravel. followed by a water/vapor special plastic for cement, and rebar!


















The last few months have been devoted to fixing the Garage. Between January and February I put most of the front end body panels. I had to order new passenger side and driver's side hinges which were lost in the mail delaying the hood going on. This was frustrating because in March the truck had to go outside! In the end it is sitting where it should be but not secured on. I got a nice water proof cover so it should be fine until I finish the Garage. 






This was all necessary in order to gut the garage and have the busted up, non rebar fortified 1960 slab out, and replace with a new one. These photos show how the floor was lifted in the middle and broken over time by roots under it.








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