Epoxy Flooring in Pittsburgh, PA

Epoxy flooring in Pittsburgh has to stand up to a long, gray, salty winter before anything else. The city averages about 44 inches of snow a season, the January daily mean sits just under 29 degrees, and the sun shows for only about 45% of its possible hours. That adds up to slush on the tires from December into March, slabs that dry slowly and concrete that freezes and thaws over and over. Epoxy Flooring Pittsburgh installs epoxy floor coating, flake, polyaspartic and metallic systems on garages, basements, shops and commercial floors across the city and Allegheny County, and we choose each system after testing the slab, not before.

Why salt and freeze-thaw matter here

Road salt comes with living on these hills. In one hard winter, PennDOT had spread about 22,000 tons of salt in Allegheny County by late January, against roughly 5,000 tons at the same point a year earlier, according to WESA. Every car that pulls into a garage carries some of that brine. On bare concrete the salty water soaks in, freezes inside the pores and pops the surface off in flakes and pits, usually first near the door. A bonded coating seals the surface so meltwater pools on the film instead, ready to be pushed out with a squeegee. The word that matters is bonded. A coating rolled over dusty or sealed concrete lets go once hot tires and salt start working on it, which is why we diamond grind every floor.

Hills, basements and slow-drying slabs

Pittsburgh runs from about 710 to 1,370 feet in elevation and has roughly 800 sets of public outdoor stairs, so a lot of homes sit on slopes, with tuck-under garages and basements cut into the hillside. Below-grade concrete stays cool, and with average relative humidity near 68%, warm summer air can leave condensation on it. Moisture in the soil also pushes vapor up through older slabs, many of which went in without a vapor barrier. That is why every estimate starts with a moisture test. A slab that reads wet gets a primer formulated for vapor. If the slab is taking on liquid water, we tell you to fix the drainage first.

Epoxy, polyaspartic or polished concrete?

Homeowners often ask us to compare the three. Standard epoxy builds a thick, hard film, often 10 to 20 mils a coat, and suits basements, shops and rooms out of the sun. Its weak spot is sunlight: HomeGuide rates epoxy poor to fair for UV, so it can yellow where light reaches it. Polyaspartic goes on thinner, 2 to 6 mils a coat, rates excellent for UV and cures fast enough to park on within a day or two instead of up to a week. Polished concrete skips the coating and grinds the slab itself to a sheen. It can look sharp in a dry commercial space, but it does not seal the surface against salt brine the way a coating does, so we seldom suggest it for a garage that sees winter driving. A common garage build pairs an epoxy base, a flake broadcast and a polyaspartic topcoat.

What epoxy flooring costs

Most of the questions people search about this work are about price, so here are the published numbers. HomeGuide's published ranges: installed epoxy, $4 to $10 per square foot; a two-car garage, $1,600 to $5,800; polyaspartic, $5 to $12 per square foot. For a 1,000 or 1,500 square foot floor, multiply the square footage by that per-foot range. A 20 by 20 room comes to 400 square feet, which is in line with a typical two-car garage. Epoxy flooring cost goes up when old paint has to come off, when salt pitting needs patching (This Old House lists patching at $25 to $250) or when you add flake or metallic effects. Once we have seen your slab, the written number on our estimate is what you pay.

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Garages, basements and businesses

Garages are the core of the work: one-, two- and three-car slabs that take salt, oil and the occasional snowblower. Basements are close behind, from laundry rooms to home gyms, where a light-colored floor brightens a room with small windows. On the commercial side, healthcare is one of the region's leading employers. UPMC alone employs about 48,000 people, and clinics, labs and back-of-house corridors need seamless floors that hold up to strong cleaners and rolling carts. Warehouses, loading areas, auto bays and workshops around the county need a hard-wearing concrete floor coating as well.

Weather on install day

Resin is fussy while it cures. In a cold garage in November or a muggy basement in July, the slab can sit at or below the dew point, and resin applied then may blush, cloud or lose its grip. Ahead of every coat we take readings of the slab, the air, the humidity and the dew point, run heaters or dehumidifiers when the space allows, and move the date when conditions are wrong. For an unheated garage, the months from late spring into early fall make scheduling simplest. Basements and heated spaces can usually be done any time of year.

Floods, radon and other things a coating will not fix

The rivers here have a long flood record. The March 1936 flood crested at 46 feet, and the remnants of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 flooded about 4,000 homes in the county, according to WPXI. 2018 went down as Pittsburgh's wettest year on record. A coating protects a floor from spills, salt and wear, but it will not stop water coming through a foundation wall, and it is not radon mitigation. The Allegheny County Health Department notes that up to 40% of Pennsylvania homes may be above the EPA action level, so test a basement before you finish it. Should either problem show up during our visit, you hear about it from us before any money goes into a coating.

What to ask epoxy flooring contractors

Whether you call us or other epoxy flooring companies, ask everyone the same questions. How will the concrete be prepared: diamond grinding or acid etching? Will the slab be moisture tested, and what happens if it fails? How many coats, of which product, at what thickness? Which topcoat goes on a floor that sees sun or salt? How soon can you walk across it, return your belongings and pull the car in? Careful epoxy floor installers answer those in writing. Our quote lists every prep step, product and coat, with a single total at the bottom.

We work across the city of Pittsburgh and out through the South Hills in Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, Upper St. Clair, Baldwin, Bridgeville and South Park Township, east in Monroeville, Penn Hills, Plum and Murrysville, north in Ross Township, Shaler Township, McCandless, Pine Township, Fox Chapel and Bellevue, west near the airport in Moon Township and Robinson Township, down the Mon Valley in West Mifflin and McKeesport, and beyond the county line in Cranberry Township, Peters Township and Canonsburg. The floors change as you go. City homes and river boroughs tend to have older, thinner basement slabs and garages tucked under the house. The postwar suburbs that boomed in the 1950s and 1960s are full of garage floors with decades of salt and oil in them. Newer subdivisions to the north and south have bigger garages on younger concrete that still needs a full grind. Each town page explains what we watch for there.