Repairing Cracked Garage Floor

[AndyNewBuild]

My single garage has a badly cracked concrete floor which has subsided slightly. I want to use the garage as a workshop rather than for car storage and would like to level the floor and paint it,if necessary.

I've read the excellent guides on this thread at the top but wonder if anyone can advise on recommended compunds. I've looked at Ardex K301 which look very good but I believe is expensive. Mira self levelling compund is much cheaper but not sure how good it is.

The garage does have a DPM and appears damp free at present. However I had thought of laying a plastic DPM on the floor first before applying the levelling compound - is this a really bad idea!?

Any suggestions?

 

[mattysupra]

you cant lay a plastic DPM under a smoothing compound as to thin. If you plan to do this you will need to lay a full screed of lets say for example, at least 50mm thick! This will have to be mixed from cement, sand etc. Your problem is that the floor hight will be raised. The correct method would really be to dig up the old subfloor and replace with new DPM and concrete.
You could use something like a DPM prep smoothing compound or acrylic based compound as a quick fix instead of doing the above but is not really the correct thing to be doing, but as a workshop should be fine. Try google for FBALL and look at there products.

 

[AndyNewBuild]

Thanks for the reply.

As it is a workshop, is using something like Ardex K301 not suitable? There is no visible damp on the floor or walls at present so I'm not too concerned about having a new DPM. I just want an easy and cost effective solution to a walkable, reasonably robust and flat floor. The Ardex product seems to be ideal for damaged concrete and should be self leveling. However I've never used it so am going by the manufacturers description

 

[mattysupra]

never used it, they are ment to be sending me some to test and play with. From what i have been told it should be fine. Cant really comment tho as never tried it.

 

[AndyNewBuild]

Thanks again. I'll give it a try myself and see how it goes.