Jack,

Thanks for willing to travel for help. I'll try to save you the trouble (and myself the expense) by trying hard on my own first...otherwise I'll just have to start stocking up on Fosters !

Tarek

 

On the cracking:

I'm bedded in DG on top of the granite that decomposed. 2 Ft down to the hard layer. Part of the new floor will be on fill, but that will be compacted. Concrete guy already wants to swacut the floor to 'manage' the cracking. I may go that way, caulk the swacut and paint over the whole thing with eposxy or maybe one of those slurry-epoxy coatings.

I'm right there with you on the slow cure stuff. Contractor wants to place it and get done, so he wants to go a little hot. I'll insist on wet and covered to minimize the chances of failure.

More steel does cut down on cracking from earth movement, but doesn't help much for settling. With theh good soil and the proximity to bedrock, settling won't be nearly the issue that lateral earthquake movement will be. The downhill side that will be built up for the back corner actually slopes down to a visible surface fault. It's several hundred yards away but definitely there. Place survived the 1994 Northridge quake without damage. Cracks in the original floor are suspect though. I'll have a better idea of the original slab thickness after tomorrow when it's broken up for removal. I'm winging home early in the morning to meet with the contractor on some other details, and should be able to see what's there by mid-day.

With luck it will be in and 30 days of cure in time to bring the 928 out of temporary storage for the drive up to Devek in August!

Thanks for the hints on the lifting beam by the way. The seller wants $300 to install the lift if I do it right away when it's delivered. They will set the anchors, place the columns, assemble the carriages and attach to my wiring. Sounds like a bargain to me after reading what you did just getting the thing unloaded. I'll be sure and take plenty of video and pictures of the process. These guys do it all day and won't make any of the amateur mistakes I surely would. Probably won't drop any big stuff or swing something through a wall or the cabinets either. No back strains for me, so that's got to be a deal.

I'll keep the group posted on progress.

 

Dr Bob,
I put up a shop a couple of years ago. 60 by 40 foot slab. I did the grading for the pad, and it was almost solid rock. We compacted sand and poured about 4" thick concrete. They thought sawing would be a good idea. So we sawed, and the cracks didn't follow the saw lines. I wouldn't saw, next time. And this even occurred over areas where I purposefully created a "grade beam". The cracks just happened.

 

Dr. Bob:
Sounds like you should be allright if you use the rebar mat and six inches of conc. FWIW, rebar's purpose is to take the tension forces against the bottom of the slab, and will keep it from failing in that way. Curing properly will minimize cracks from shrinkage, and should be done SLOWLY and with moisture. Why not consider exposed aggregate floor surface? As you must know, stress cracks are not given a chance to migrate and spread freely by breaking up the surface even minutely. If done properly, any stress cracks would not be noticeable. And it looks good too. A good concrete installer can perform this finish at the end of the pour. This along with control joints inlaid rather than cut should produce a nice floor.

 

I have a second hand hydralift two post model 26000 and really need a manual for it. I am ready to install and need to double check the configuration. someone mentioned in this thread that they had one can you please email it to me?