Garage Replacement and Repair

The retaining walls supporting the back and sides of this garage were failing. We demolished the existing garage and installed new, reinforced concrete retaining walls and a slab with drainage behind them. Constructing the rest of the garage was easy after that. An alternative to the removal and replacement of two failing walls in this concrete garage in Berkeley was to leave them in place and install new concrete retaining walls on the inside. Because of the difficulty in using conventional forming, the concrete was installed using shotcrete, high-pressure concrete sprayed in place using a special pump. It is also possible to replace the garage foundation (or retaining walls), and install a new floor and drainage in a structure where the existing framing is in reasonable condition. This avoids the greater expense of replacing the whole structure. Other than that, all this garage needed was a new roof. In this photo we are in the process of reconstructing a garage which is mostly concrete, buried into the hillside in front of this home. An extensive drainage system is being installed behind the retaining walls to keep the new garage dry.