Why does water run under our garage door?

Question

Water seems to come into our garage during heavy rains and when snow is melting. It is not a lot, but enough to form pools of shallow water about 1 foot into the garage. It does not appear as though the driveway is slanted toward the garage and our house is built into a hill. The garage doors themselves are 13 years old. Is there anything we can do to prevent the water from leaking in? Is this a big deal?

Answer 1

The slab under your garage is likely below grade. Try installing a gasket on each garage door. But, you will have to go out and squeegee the driveway near garage door before opening it. Or, more expensive, you might build retaining walls on either side of driveway, but if water comes down your driveway this will not help. Lastly, building up the floor of the garage by laying in more concrete may be an answer, but poses some problems at entry doors from house to garage if they are connected.

Answer 2

It sounds like the wind may be blowing it in. Probably the simplest fix is a U-channel that you can buy at somewhere like Lowe's or Menards. Basically it is a rubber channel that you can adhere to the concrete and it runs along the entire base of the door. It is about 3-6 inches wide or so and slants up to the door, making the water run uphill before getting into the channel. It also kind of cups the door so the wind can't get under the door. The U-channel is only like 3/4" to an inch tall. It's meant to help insulate a garage, but it helps to keep water out too.

Answer 3

If it doesn't rain every other day where you're at, it not that big a deal.
To fix though and fix right, you need to have someone dig a small trench in front of the garage doors and put in a drainage area. This will be covered with metal grates. Kind of like the drainage grates you see on the city streets (by the curb) every 20 feet or so. The water would drain off to the side of the garage where ever you choose. The ditch would only have to be 6-8 inches wide, 8-10 inches deep and as wide as the garage at least.
Hard to explain, but I hope you can "see" this in your mind.

Answer 4

The best product I've seen for this is actually a gasket that you glue down onto the floor. The part that is inside the closed door is up higher than the front, so wind driven rain won't make it flow over this "dam" and into your garage.

While it is fine to drive your car over and lawn mowers too, it doesn't work for rolling toolboxes or maybe a mobile table saw, because these usually have small diameter wheels.

Home Depot has these.

Answer 5

There are weather strips available to give you a lip gasket under your garage door. This works by pressing gently down on the rubber strip and creating a seal. If this doesn't work, perhaps a new garage door is in order

Answer 6

if you seal the garage, what will happen is the water will dam up at the door and rot the wood upright parts of the wood work. i would recommend making some groves in the concrete to start the water toward one side where you place a sump pump (get a serious one), in a sump that is at least 1 foot square, 3 feet deep. place some material to catch grass and leaves and keep it clean. without knowing exactly what you have to work with, it is hard to advise further, but you might end up having to place some groves in the soil also to help move water toward the sump and keep as much off the driveway as possible, take a 1 inch rain over 1 hour, you drive is say 8 feet wide, 20 feet long, or 160 square feet. each foot of drive is getting 144 inches of rain. add to that anything coming off the yard and you have a lot of water to drain off. one other thing you can do, depending on your soil is use a yard machine to punch some air holes in the soil and add course grain to build up particle size to reduce the amount of water running off. some friends on the coast who have a high clay soil, used to add sand to their yard each year to reduce run off, it is a slow process but does work

Answer 7

Is there a rubber seal on the bottom of the door? If not there should be. If it is gone or in bad shape water can run under the door.

Answer 8

Check the rubber door seal as well as the gutters and downspouts over your garage doors.

Answer 9

sounds like you have added something to the surface of the driveway which change the elevation of the driveway . The slope ( elevation) may be inclining towards the house instead of away from the house.

Answer 10

the product the othera are talking about that glues to the floor is called "storm shield". if installed correctly, it does an excellent job of keeping water out.