Salt Brine Pits The Garage Floors In Oshawa's Older Neighbourhoods
Rubber surfacing covers a garage floor that salt has eaten, and it does not let the next winter's brine get through to the slab. The garage slabs of Lakeview, Vanier and Centennial went in with the post-war bungalows, often thin and often without a vapour barrier, and every winter since a car has dripped salt water onto them.
Brine sinks into concrete, freezes, swells and blows the top off. Year by year the pitting spreads and the floor begins to dust. Garage floor rubber surfacing fills those pits, buries the surface under a flexible layer and leaves you a floor a hose can clean.
Driveways On Oshawa Clay Crack At The Seams And Heave At The Garage Door
Rubber surfacing spans the cracks that open across a driveway when the ground under it moves, and on the old lakebed south of the 401 the ground moves every winter. Silty clay holds water, the water freezes, and the driveway lifts at the joint by the garage door and drops again in March.
A driveway gets rubber surfacing at roughly half an inch on top of its asphalt or concrete. That layer has enough give to follow the seasonal heave without splitting, and it drains, so meltwater never sits on it long enough to glaze. Any crack that is still opening and closing is cut and filled ahead of the pour, since rubber surfacing will cover a crack but will not pin a slab in place.
Garage Floor Rubber Surfacing In Oshawa Is A One-Day Job
A garage floor gets ground before any rubber surfacing goes on, because nearly every garage slab carries oil, old paint or a sealer that would kill the bond. Once it is bare, the pits and cracks get filled and the primer goes on. Then SBR granules and binder come out of the mixer and get troweled from the back wall toward the door, three-eighths of an inch deep or up to half an inch.
Feet go on the rubber surfacing the next morning; the car goes on it two or three days later. The finished rubber surfacing is black or charcoal, it does not dust, it is quieter than concrete when a tool drops and it is warmer under your feet in January.