Pittsburgh concrete floors
The city with a basement under almost every house
Pittsburgh is a straight run south from our Wexford base on I-79 and the Parkway North, and it is the busiest part of our map. It is also the oldest concrete we work on. This is a city of full basements, hillside garages cut into the slope, and converted mill and warehouse buildings in Lawrenceville, the Strip District and the South Side.
Old slabs are not a problem, they are usually an opportunity. Concrete poured decades ago is often dense and hard, and once the mastic, paint and patches are ground off it takes a stain or a polish beautifully. That is where most of our basement floor work in the city comes from.
What Pittsburgh concrete is actually up against
Two things, and they work together. The first is freeze and thaw. Winter here does not sit at one temperature, it crosses freezing over and over, so water that has soaked into the pores of a slab freezes, expands, and lifts the surface off a flake at a time. The second is salt. PennDOT and every city crew salt the roads for months, and that salt comes home in the meltwater on your tires and sits on the garage floor.
Below ground it is moisture instead. A Pittsburgh basement slab sits on ground that holds water, and vapor moves up through the concrete all year. That is what lifts old tile adhesive and paint, and it is why we test a basement slab before quoting a finish rather than after. On a sound slab, sealing it properly is the cheapest protection there is.
What we handle here
Floors we finish in Pittsburgh
Stained And Polished Basement Floors
The job the city asks for most. A cold gray slab under the house becomes a finished floor with real color in it, and unlike carpet or laminate it does not mind the damp that comes with living below grade. See how we approach a basement.
Garage Floors That Take The Salt
A Pittsburgh garage catches five months of salty meltwater a year. Ground open, filled, coated and sealed, the slab keeps all of that on the surface where a mop can deal with it. Here is how we build a garage floor.
Converted Mill And Warehouse Floors
Old industrial slabs in Lawrenceville, the Strip and the South Side are thick, dense and full of history. Ground open they take a polish or a metallic finish that no new floor could match. Look at the floors we have finished.
Shop, Warehouse And Back Of House
Working floors across the city get the same treatment as a home, at a different scale and around your opening hours. Polished for hard wheeled traffic, resin where chemicals land. See a commercial floor coating.
Why Pittsburgh calls us
We have been reading this city's concrete since 2004
Rick Chase started Elite Concrete Floors in January 2004 and has spent 22 years on floors in and around Pittsburgh. He does every estimate himself and runs the crew that turns up afterwards, so nothing is handed to a stranger and you are not chasing a call center about your own floor.
He is blunt about the line, too. We finish concrete, we do not pour it and we do not do structural repair. If your slab is moving, you will hear that on the first visit rather than after a deposit.
Where you will find us around the city
Most of our city work sits in the residential neighborhoods where the houses have real basements: Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, Brookline, Mount Washington, the North Side and out along the Parkway. The hills mean a lot of tuck under garages with slabs that see water running at them from the driveway.
Then there is the other Pittsburgh. Lawrenceville, the Strip District and the South Side are full of buildings that used to make things and now hold apartments, studios and small businesses. Different era of slab, same approach: grind it and read what the concrete tells you.
Where we work
Grinding, coating and polishing floors across Pittsburgh
We cover Pittsburgh end to end, from the North Side and the Parkway neighborhoods through the East End and out to the southern hilltops. The same truck runs north to Franklin Park and Gibsonia, and up I-79 to Cranberry Township.
Ask the guy doing the work
Straight answers about your concrete floor questions
Do you come into the city, or only the North Hills?
Into the city, all the time. Pittsburgh is a short run down I-79 and the Parkway from Wexford, and city basements and converted buildings are a big part of what we do. Call (724) 313-7520 and Rick will set a time.
My Pittsburgh basement has old tile glue all over the floor. Is that a problem?
It is the normal starting point in an older city house. The adhesive gets ground off first, because a finish over old glue is stuck to the glue and nothing else. Once we are back to bare concrete we can see what we actually have.
My garage slab is pitted and flaking. Can it be saved?
Usually yes. That pitting is salt and freeze and thaw taking the top off the slab, and it is what most Pittsburgh garages look like by year ten. If the concrete underneath is sound, a new wear surface and a coating fix it.
Can you polish the concrete in a converted mill building?
Often, and those are some of the best floors in Pittsburgh once the old coatings and patches come off. Bring Rick out to look, because how deep we can cut depends on what the slab has been through.
Which Pittsburgh neighborhoods do you cover?
All of them. Most of our city work is in the residential neighborhoods with full basements and tuck under garages, plus the converted buildings in Lawrenceville, the Strip District and the South Side. Call with your address and ask.
Do you fix cracked or sinking concrete in Pittsburgh?
No, and you will hear that straight away. We finish concrete, we do not pour or repair it. If a slab has a structural problem, get that sorted first and then we can talk about a finish.