Two Car Garage Fall Special
The proof is in this picture of a beautiful maple tree outside my office. The calender might say its summer, the weather forecasters on TV may say its still summer but Mother Nature is always right and she says fall is fast approaching and winter can't be far behind.
The Minneapolis St Paul Garage Building Season is Almost Over
In Minneapolis - St Paul the Garage Building season is fast coming to a end.
One of the most often asked questions this time of year is;
I want my two car Garage before the snow flies, how late in the year can you pour Garage Slabs and Driveways?
The answer is until Mother Nature tells me I can't pour anymore. The actual date varies from year to year but we're usually done with Garage Slabs around the first of November.
Why can't you pour Garage Slabs all winter? The answer to that question is in the concrete it's self.
- A Garage slab is 11% Portland Cement
- A Garage Slab is 6% air
- A Garage Slab is 41% aggregate
- A Garage Slab is 26% sand
- A Garage Slab is 16% water
Its the water in the Garage Slab that causes winter placement problems. Once the ground freezes and the frost gets several inches deep we have to stop placing concrete for Detached Garage Slabs and driveways. If we placed wet concrete on frozen ground, the water would freeze and turn into ice, then expand causing the surface of the concrete to flake off. This would be structurally OK but not acceptable ascetically.
There are things we can do to keep the Garage Slab from freezing. We insulate the ground with cement blankets until we're ready to pour. We pull the cement blankets, pour the slab as quickly as possible and cover the slab with the same cement blankets we used to keep the frost out of the yard. All this comes at a expense so its not done very often.
