I just bought an old house, has a 44x32 foot, two story garage, Anyways the upper floor was at one time a shop and was told they had as many as 8 cars in there. The floor is iron beams with 2x12 lumber every 16 inches. with one layers of 3/4 plywood on top one layer of 1"x8" tongue and groove under the plywood. . Anyways the plywood is oil soaked and getting in rough shape.
Trying to figure out what i can do to make it look better and more user friendly, Dont want concrete slab, To heavy and would raise floor to high. Thought about roll out mats?12"tiles? or some kinds of paint epoxy after i layed down new plywood.

anyone ever had to deal with a similar situation? or any suggestions would be appreciated.

thanks and sorry for such a long pst

 

I would be very careful of that floor. Old plywood being point loaded with a jack could fail. Do you have any room for concrete? 2x12 on 16s is not the stronges of structures either depending on spans between steel.
Do you have any pics of the structure? By the way if you are worried about slab weight I would think very carefully about the how much a car weighs! There are lightweight concrete options at 1-1/2"

 

It has 8 by 12 inch metal i beams every 12 feet, it has the same metal beams at the outside around 30 feet apart, then 1 foot in on each end there is rail road ties so the beams are supported about 28 feet apart, when i bought it i cleaned it out completley, full of engine blocks, car parts, and a bunch of junk. I measured from one beam to the ground. Then i drove both my 6500 pound pickups in it, my 60 vette, my dunebuggy, two fourwheelers, two dirtbikes, two snowmobiles. App. 2500 pound craftsman tool box.

I then measued the same beam at the exact same place and the beam lowered app 3/8 of an inch. I talked with an engineer and a few contractors and they said the structure sounded plenty strong. But agree Mountain that point loading with engine hoist or something simliar could be dangerous.

there will never be that many vehicles in there at one time, It will be used as a shop to rebuild dirtbikes,snowmobiles,Atv's and dunebuggies.

I will use the lower level to park my vehicles when i get slab poured this summer. I would be interested i suggestions on concret you mentioned though?

thanks

 

You can get a light weight concrete ( has small aggregate mix) and air entrain if for even a lighter mix. The thinest I would suggest would be 1 1/2" does that work for your elevations? Not sure but an engineer could tell you what type of cracking you might see with the 3/8 defelection you saw. I would think by doing this you could spread the load more so you would not worry about point loading and then I would use the epoxy base floor sealer.
Good luck seems like a very cool garage! PICs

 

Mountain Ill try and get some pics soon, The garage was in tough shape with broken out windows and no siding, Just 1x10 horizontal on the exterior. Its well weathered and looks like old barn wood. I got three of the new windows installed and housewerapped but winter came to quickly.

The problem with raising the floor level is I would have to rework the entry. Its ashpalt and was told around 3 feet thick at a decent grade. Unsure how i could bring that up to match a new floor level


thanks for your suggestions. Gives me some thoughts before summer arrives

 

Can you do an overlay of the asphalt that raises the level and then feathers away from the garage? I love to solve construction problems so get some pics and I will try my best to help. You have seen the crazy sh#%t I am doin in my own house!

 

If you go with concrete have it them add color to it before it is poured. I did it in the last building I built, then I cleared it. It was very easy to fix the clear and if you get a big chuck or nick it is the same color all the way through