Posted by Kevin in Ohio on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 at 2:23PM :
In Reply to: OT - Garage construction question posted by John on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 at 1:45PM :
As others have stated do what you can afford but 6 inches of concrete looks cheap when 4 fails. The BIGGEST thing to remember is make sure the area where the slab is solid with pea gravel or some kind of aggregete there. If you have to add fill compact it in layers or it will settle on you later and cause shifts. Road mesh is okay but it will still allow shifts in extreme circumstances. I'm a firm believer that ALL concrete WILL crack, it's about controlling the shifting. I'm overkill as we have heavy equipment. All pours are 1/2 rebar 16" on center(X'd) with 5 1/2" concrete(2" X 6" form board) with 4 inches of pea gravel under it. I've seen it happen time and time again where people pour 4" and get a delivery or decide to pour something on their place and the cement truck ruins their driveway. Wanna guess what one weighs? I'm not an engineer but some of the old cement truck drivers tell me it nice to see someone not wasting their money and time.