Concrete garage Floor and insurance coverage

I would contact your insurance company to see if you are covered or not. It doesn't really matter what anyone in here says, if the insurance company won't cover it you are out of luck.

Personally I doubt that you will get any coverage. Garage floors are expected to crack. It is common practice to saw cut garage floors to promote cracking in desired areas, was this the case with your floor?

What do you want as a claim? The money that it would cost to rip out your floor and pour another one? When that one cracks are you going to make another claim? If everyone who had a garage floor crack claimed it then insurance would be through the roof.

Other than that, good luck with your claim.

By all means bring the problem--sooner rather than later--to the attention of your mortgage company (and thereby, the insurer). The insurance carrier has no reason not to look into the matter. It could also be a warrantly issue on so new a house. Whether or not control joints (as mentioned above) should have been used depends largely on the size of the floor, and reasonably predictable weather extremes--and sub zero temps are reasonably to be expected in Pittsburg. In any event, the insurer (and mortgage company) is the best starting point, and they will probably want to handle the matter--and find any liable/negligent parties to determine who pays what. It is not something you should--or, probably, that you could--handle on your own. You have nothing to lose by pursuing the matter with your homeowners insurance, and mortagage company. Be sure to get pictures ASAP, and make the report without undue delay. Be persistent and don't accept any brush off until you are satisfied with the response you get. Let us know how that goes...and if you need further advise.

Concrete cracks. It's an imperfect substance. You stated that you had cracks already. I'd assume that your car drove in with snow on it, that snow melted and dripped into the cracks, then froze, expanded and made bigger cracks.

Life can be cruel, dude.

Where in my post did I specify that I "already had cracks"............................Dude?

13 years without one crack that sounds like a pretty good job to me. How long do you expect the contractor to stand by and wait to get sued? Sounds like a potential abuse of the legal system brewing to me.

Like insurance companies don't abuse the legal system???

Seriously though, it was caused by an unusual event, it is really just storm damage which is what you pay your insurance for! To an insurance company all claims are an abuse of the agreement! They are there for there investors not you, you are just the food source!

Claim away!!!

P.s. When replacing the floor make sure it has rubber underlay and that black plastic stuff with the corrugated cardboard structure! and make sure their is a seperate slab for the first foot or so from the outside door(s) with a spongy divider. their are also special concretes these days (continuous strip freeway concrete) that do not crack with temperature extremes.

I would like to challenge the statement about continuous freeway cement not cracking. About ten years ago we had a stretch of 4 lane poured, this road bed had been there for ever. When they put the curb and gutter on the sides of the slabs they scored them, (not the slab) within two years, every place that they scored the curb, the whole thing cracked from one side of the road to the other.

Read your insurance policy. The damage might be covered or it might not. In any case, some cracks in the concrete won't affect the functional life of the slab. Next August - after the summer heat has dried it out - waterproof the slab. That will prevent further freeze-thaw damage.

Thanks for the replies everyone. The insurance claims person inspected and is claiming that "I'ts concrete, and concrete cracks". I expected this but............her actions from the onset were that they had no intentions on paying for this from the get-go and that the cracks "were starting already and the cold just accelerated it". So I asked her if it was just a coniencidence that it chose the coldest wave of weather for the area in many years to "happen to crack" and she said "yes". She also added that some of the cracks looked like they had been there for sometime......which they were not. I even offered an analogy of if a tornado would have ripped up the garage floor that it would indeed be covered by my homeowners........she said "yes". I asked her what the difference was between the cold-wave causing the cracking as opposed to the tornado and she "snapped" her fingers and said that a tornado does it instantly. I told her that it probably occured just as quickly with one of the minus 30 degree nights and she didn't have a reply for me.

I know that concrete is porous and that it inheritently is prone to cracks but insurance is supposed to cover you during an extreme weather event........am I right? The cracking was not mentioned by the homeowners before us nor was it observed by myself and the home inspector. I will check with the mortage company to see if the concrete was mixed in accordance with the regions parameters and let everyone know how my persistance pays off.

Thanks for some great venues guys.

Do you think the same holds true for cracks that occur due to settling? I have 3 slabs adjacent to my garage that are cracking straight across, parallel to the garage. You can see 2 of them 'sinking' at the cracks, forming a slight V. My place is only 5 years old. I would expect a driveway to last a little longer than that.

Oh, and one of the slabs in my garage is starting to do the same thing. Thoughts?

quick, run out, get half a dozen bags of thinset, make it look smooth and SELL SELL SELL!