The to be covered by the suspended slab
The crane to set the slab
After the suspended slab was set in place
The "cap" poured on the suspended slab

Suspended Slab

The suspended slab is a few pieces of engineered reinforced concrete that can span large distances and hold large loads without the need for support beams below it. The suspended slab allowed us to create basement space under the garage, effectively adding almost 700 square feet to the basement for very low cost (approximately $8.00 per square foot).

I will be using this space for a workshop & storage, however, it could easily be finished off into a large game room or home theatre.

Some people I have talked to worry that my cars are going to fall into the basement. However, the suspended slab is made by the same people who build parking garages and large stadiums (Eagle Precast), so the technology they use has a long and successful track record. The use of this type of system in residential construction is relatively new, but I think it will become quite popular in upcoming years.

We could have put the suspended slab over the entire garage area, but we decided to only put it over the two-car section, and just did a normal floor in the third-car section.

Installation of the suspended slab only took half a day. The day before the slab was delivered, they set a crane in place to pull the pieces off the truck and set them on the foundation. Because of all the rain, the lot was very muddy and the crane was having a hard time getting up the hill next to the garage. An excavator (Blue Rock Construction) who was in the area working on another project saw the difficulties, hooked up his big front loader, and pulled the crane up the hill. As a result of this encounter, we ended up hiring him to build our rock retaining wall.

The next day, a small crew arrived, set the slab in place and grouted the seams. That was it, really. To finish the installation, a concrete "cap" will be poured on top of the suspended slab later.

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