The garage is considered one of the most essential parts of your house, where you store your vehicles safely. In today’s article, we will discuss how thick the concrete should be for a garage.
Concrete thickness for a garage
The concrete thickness for a garage should be based on how much load it has to take. If your garage is built for average-sized vehicles, the concrete needs to be 6 inches thick. On the other hand, for heavy vehicles, the concrete is recommended to thicken up to 8 inches.
Since the garage is one of the most essential parts of the house, you need to build it carefully and maintain the concrete thickness so that it can be able to do its job at its finest.
Generally, the garages are used to store unused things around the house, and cars most importantly. If you do not measure the thickness of concrete walls and floor slabs of your garage, it will not be able to take loads of vehicles used or inside of them.
That is why while discussing the construction process of a garage, you need to consider the thickness of the concrete so that the garage can provide support to Heavy and medium loads.
One of the first things that come to your mind when considering the garage concrete thickness is the preparation of the base. The thickness of a garage is associated with the basic structure or base of the garage.
It is very important to have a solid and level base for the garage floor slab. In addition to that, if your garage floor or base is uneven or loose, it will make the floor defective and form cracks.
Generally, most people tend to prefer a 40MM aggregate concrete base on the soil on which the reinforcements can be placed. There are a few variables that you need to consider when determining the concrete thickness for the garage floor slab.
The garage floor slab weighs only about 75 PSF and vehicles that don’t exceed 50 PSF in the garage can be stored inside of them.
In addition to that, the International Residential code requires that the garage floor slabs will be built with concrete and comprehensive strengths of 2500 to 3500 PSI.
A garage that will take light loads such as 1 to 2 light cars should have 4 inches of thick concrete. If your garage will be used for average-sized vehicles or medium trucks, it needs to have a 6 inches thick floor.
In addition to that, if your garage floor is going to see constant traffic and store heavy vehicles, it is recommended to increase the thickness of concrete up to 8 inches.
This will help to sustain the performance of your garage floor for a longer time. That is why you should be very careful when placing the thickness of the garage floor.
Is 4 inches of concrete enough for a garage?
Choosing the right type of thickness for the garage floor is important because the garage floor can be easily damaged if it faces constant traffic.
However, it is recommended by the experts and the International residential code that when you build a garage, the floor thickness should always be measured and maintained.
In addition to that, you can put at least 4 inches of thick concrete in a garage for better performance. However, if your garage is going to store one or two light cars or trucks, you can easily do the job with four inches to create a slab.
That is why it is recommended to keep a minimum of four inches of thickness for a garage floor slab.
However, due to the Loads of vehicles, the thickness can be increased but you should not go below 4 inches of thickness when building a garage to store the cars.
Otherwise, the garage floor will be damaged and deflect easily. In addition to that, the garage floor must maintain the proper residential code when being built.
How thick do you pour concrete for a garage?
Generally, the thickness of the garage floor depends on how much load it is going to take. There are several types of garage floors available based on the loads they take.
If your garage floor is dedicated to storing one or two light cars or trucks, the concrete should be poured at least four inches thick.
On the other hand, if the garage is used for average-sized vehicles or medium to heavy trucks, the concrete needs to be 6 inches thick. In addition to that, the standard thickness for every garage should be around 6 inches thick.
However, for heavier loads like trucks and vehicles thickness will increase significantly. In addition to that, sometimes you may need to have a garage floor when you see constant traffic from heavy vehicles inside the garage.
Considering that you need to pour an 8-inch thick concrete slab on the garage floor. However, the standard thickness for the garage floor should always be 6 inches.
3 factors that affect concrete thickness for a garage
The garage is considered one of the most essential parts of the house. It is very important to build the garage in such a way that it can take proper loads of vehicles stored inside of it as well as unused items that you are going to leave them there.
When building a garage, determining the garage floor slab thickness is very important. It will help you to determine how much load your garage will be able to take.
In addition to that, you should always follow the International residential code when building a garage to figure out the proper measurements of the thickness of your garage.
Generally, the standard thickness of the garage floor slab should be around 6 inches. However, depending on the loads, the thickness may vary.
If your garage is dedicated to storing light cars or trucks, the concrete should be at least 4 inches thick.
However, you should remember that the thickness should not be less than 4 inches. Below is a brief discussion on a few factors that affect the concrete thickness of a garage:
Load capacity:
The first thing that affects the concrete thickness for a garage is the load capacity. For higher load capacity, the thickness should be more than the standard ones.
Finishing:
Finishing is one of the major factors that affect the concrete thickness of a garage floor because if you use the right type of finishing for the garage floor, it will sustain its thickness for a long time without breaking or cracking.
Climate condition:
Due to the diversity of climate conditions in a different area, the thickness of your garage floor may vary. In some places, the soil may be hard enough to take extra loads than the garage floor, so you do not need to put much thicker slabs on the garage floor.
How to calculate concrete slab thickness for a garage?
Building a garage is one of the most complicated tasks in a household construction project. Generally, it takes a lot of patience and effort to build a garage.
In addition to that, you need to follow the right building code to make your garage sustainable in the longer term.
The garage can be in many different designs. In a high-rise building, an increase in the thickness of the slab by 5mm can result in a significant increase in column axial loads.
In addition to that, when the column axial loads increase, we have to increase the column sizes, reinforcements, foundation sizes, and many more. Finally, it will affect the cost of construction.
That is why we should limit their thickness in any construction to the limits required by the design to save cost and unnecessary spending, as well as construction work.
If you are looking to figure out the slab thickness for a garage, you can simply follow the steps below:
Following the code:
The first thing you need to do when building and determining the concrete thickness for a garage is to follow the residential code to figure out the proper thickness of your garage.
Determine the load:
You need to determine and calculate the number of cars and the load capacity of your garage to figure out how much thickness you should put on the garage floor slab that will be able to sustain the Load.
Use standard measurements:
By using the standard measurements of your garage, you can easily calculate the garage floor slab thickness. In most cases, people recommend using 6 inches of thickness for the garage slab.
Final Thoughts
The thickness of your garage floor slab depends on how much load you will be putting on it. Generally, the standard measurements for the garage floor thickness should be 6 inches, but you should remember that the garage floor thickness should not be more than 8 inches and less than four inches.