Residential flooring installation
A home floor you can park on, work on and show off
Residential work here means finishing the concrete a house already has. Garages, basements, utility rooms, sunrooms, kitchens in converted buildings and covered patios all take the same treatment: grind the slab back to bare, fix what is wrong with the surface, then polish, stain or coat it. Nothing gets torn out and nothing gets poured.
Rick Chase looks at every one of them himself. Twenty two years in means he has seen most of what western Pennsylvania concrete does, and he will tell you when a room is a good candidate and when it is not.
Want an opinion on your floor? Call Elite Concrete Floors for a free estimate.
Which rooms in a house can actually take this?
Any room sitting on a slab. In our own photos that has meant basement bars and family rooms, kitchens and open living space in converted brick buildings, garages, utility rooms and the deck around an indoor pool. What they all have in common is concrete underneath and an owner who wanted a finished floor rather than something laid on top of it. Upstairs rooms on a timber floor are a different trade and not ours. If you are not sure what is under your carpet, Rick will pull a corner up at the estimate and look. It all sits under the same concrete floor work in Wexford heading.
Does a finished concrete floor handle water?
Better than almost anything else you could put down, because it is one continuous sealed surface with no seams, no grout lines and no boards that swell. That is why it suits laundry rooms, mudrooms, utility areas and, in one of our jobs, the whole deck around an indoor pool. Water sits on top and gets mopped or squeegeed away. It also means a burst washing machine hose is an afternoon of cleaning up rather than a floor replacement. Below grade it matters even more, which is the whole point of our basement floor work.
One room, or the whole downstairs
Free estimate from Rick, with the finish, the schedule and the price in writing.
Call (724) 313-7520How long does a room take, and how much upheaval is it?
Most single rooms are two days. Day one is clearing, grinding, repairs and the base coat. Day two is the finish and the topcoat, then cure time before the furniture comes back. The room has to be empty so the grinder can reach the walls, and doorways get masked because grinding makes dust even with vacuums running. Rick gives you the dates and the sequence in writing before anything is booked, so you know which day you cannot use the room. A shop or a warehouse runs on the same clock, just bigger: see commercial floors.
Can I have something other than plain?
Yes, and people do. The checkerboard inlay in one of our garage photos is a customer choice, not a stock pattern. Flake comes in blends, so you pick the color and how heavy the coverage sits. Metallic is mixed to whatever look you are after and no two floors come out the same. Stain runs from a soft amber through copper to charcoal. Rick brings samples out so the decision is made off a real chip in your own light rather than a photograph on a phone.
Air quality while a coating cures is a fair question in an occupied house, and the US EPA publishes straightforward guidance on ventilating a room.
Ask the guy doing the work
Straight answers about your concrete floor questions
Do you install carpet, tile or hardwood?
No. We finish the concrete that is already in your house: grinding, polishing, staining, coating and sealing. If you want a floor laid on top of the slab, you want a different trade and we will say so.
Is this cheaper than replacing the floor?
It depends on the room and the finish, which is why every job gets looked at and quoted rather than priced off a chart. What it does do is remove the replacement cycle: a finished slab is not something you pull up in ten years.
Will it be noisy or smelly?
Grinding is loud for the hours it runs, and coatings have a smell while they cure. We ventilate the space and tell you honestly how long that lasts, which is usually a day. Polished floors have almost no smell at all.
Can you match a floor I have seen?
Bring the photo to the estimate. Flake blends, stain colors and metallic mixes cover a lot of ground, and Rick will tell you straight if a look is not achievable on your slab rather than promise it.
Do you work on new builds?
Yes, and it is the easiest version of the job. A new slab has no old adhesive, no paint and no patches, so the grinder gets straight to work. Let the concrete cure properly first and Rick will tell you how long that takes.
What areas do you cover for home floors?
Wexford, Pittsburgh, Cranberry Township, Gibsonia, Franklin Park, Zelienople and the towns around them. Our BBB profile lists Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Lawrence, Mercer and Westmoreland counties, and that is genuinely where the truck goes.