Terrazzo restoration services, start to finish

What is involved

Most floors take the same ten step process. A floor with more damage might add an eleventh. A floor that needs less than the full progression is a repolish rather than a restoration, and that is priced differently.

Every stage depends on the one before it. Grinding is the basis, not the whole story. Skipping or shortening the middle of the sequence shows up in the finished surface long after the invoice is paid.

• Damage from old flooring, slab trenching and drilled holes filled with matching aggregate and color-matched resin
• Grinding to remove decades of wax, topical sealer, staining and surface damage
• Honing and polishing through the full progression, each pass replacing the last scratch pattern with a finer one
• Sealing that fills the pores, followed by a final burnish

Replacement is not an option

Cementitious terrazzo is essentially irreplaceable. Having new terrazzo installed runs north of $100 per square foot, and almost nobody is cross-shopping the two. The realistic alternative to restoring your floor is covering it with something else.

That is also what saved most of these floors: carpet, tile and vinyl went down over terrazzo for fifty years, and the terrazzo underneath came through it. Restoring what is already there is the least expensive path to a finished floor you will love.

Most floors are candidates, including ones you were told were not

The vast majority of terrazzo can be restored, including plenty of floors other companies have declined. The conditions that rule a floor out are excessive physical damage and certain kinds of damage left by past flooring: grid patterns burned in by glue-down tile, or the darkening left by old waffle-patterned carpet pad.

We look at the floor in person before quoting, so you find out where yours stands before anyone commits to anything.

The sequence we follow

1. Inspect the floor in person

   We look at the terrazzo, the damage and the maintenance history it has been through, and quote from what is actually there.

2. Set up dust collection

   Oversized HEPA dust collection capturing dust at the source.

3. Grind

   This is where decades of wax, topical sealer, staining and superficial damage come off.

4. Match and Patch

   Matching marble aggregate and resin color matched in indirect natural light (when possible).

5. Hone

   Each pass replaces the previous scratch pattern with a finer one.

6. Polish

   Continued refining the floor down to roughly 7 microns, producing a high gloss surface with a high clarity reflection.

7. Seal

   A sealer that fills the pores of the terrazzo rather than coating the surface.

8. Burnish

   The final step. You're left with a floor that's easy to maintain and holds up for years.