St. Petersburg Terrazzo Restoration: Frequently Asked Questions

Grind and polish is $4 to $8 per square foot, carpet and glue removal adds $2 to $3 and tile removal $4 to $5 per square foot, hole and crack repair is $75 to $250 per patch, stain treatment $150 to $600 per area, and resealing a restored floor $1 to $2 per square foot. Most 1,200 to 1,800 square foot mid-century homes land between $3,000 and $9,000. Minimums run $600 to $1,000.

Concrete block homes built in Pinellas County between about 1950 and 1972 usually do. Pull up a corner of carpet in a closet and look for a speckled marble-chip surface divided by thin brass or zinc strips. The University of Florida's postwar housing survey quotes a period description of the typical Florida house as built on slabs with terrazzo or resilient tile floors and 99 percent concrete block, and the survey notes block gave way to wood framing in the 1970s.

Restoration grinds the stone with diamond abrasives and polishes it back up through the grits so the shine is the marble itself, then applies a penetrating sealer. A shine product is a film, acrylic or urethane or wax, mopped over the dirty surface. The NTMA says wax coats the surface, can yellow and dull, wears quickly, and makes the floor slippery. Films also trap slab moisture, which matters on a Pinellas slab.

Rust rings from tack-strip nails and dye bleed from carpet pad are shallow and almost always grind out in the normal passes. Deep pet urine and old oil stains sometimes lighten and sometimes stay. The NTMA restoration specification says plainly that all staining in existing terrazzo may not be possible to remove, and we quote the same way.

Repaired well, yes; invisibly, no. A patch uses matched marble chips in a tinted matrix and is ground flush, and from standing height it disappears. Up close you can see it, and the NTMA notes that matching existing aggregate may not be exact because marble is a mined product. We do a mock-up patch first so you can judge before the rest are done.

No. Section 489.117(4)(a) of the Florida Statutes bars local governments from requiring a license for terrazzo, tile, marble, and flooring work, and the Pinellas County Construction Licensing Board eliminated its Tile and Marble Specialty license effective July 1, 2024. There is no terrazzo license number for anyone to hold. Work through this site is done by insured Florida terrazzo and stone restoration specialists; ask any bidder for insurance and ask what tooling they grind with.

Metal-bond diamonds from about 30/40 up to 80 grit to cut glue, coatings, and the old surface and flatten the floor, then resin-bond diamonds from 100 grit up through 400, 800, 1500, and as high as 3000 for a high gloss. The NTMA restoration spec calls for wet grinding at 50 grit or higher before grouting and a final pass with 120-grit carborundum or 200-grit resin-bond diamond, and it describes finishes ranging from 120 grit to 1500 grit or more.

Terrazzo handles moisture; it breathes. What fails is a film coating trapped over a damp slab. Hurricane Helene pushed a storm surge the city warned would reach 5 to 8 feet into St. Petersburg on September 26, 2024, and the flooded floors in Shore Acres, Snell Isle, Broadwater, and Gulfport are exactly where a penetrating sealer, not a coating, is essential. We test the slab before sealing.

Usually. Grinding is wet, with vacuum shrouds, and rooms are done in phases with furniture moved room to room. A whole house takes several days. An empty house is faster and cheaper, so if you are between tenants or mid-move, do it then.

The polish is the stone itself, so it lasts until it is worn or scratched, decades in a house. The penetrating sealer is renewed every few years at $1 to $2 per square foot. The NTMA sealer guide notes that in a honed-and-densified routine there is no sacrificial coating, and damage is repaired by re-honing the affected area rather than by stripping and recoating.

Dust mop, then damp mop with a pH-neutral cleaner, and rinse. The NTMA care guide says not to use vinegar, bleach, ammonia, degreasers, or surface waxes, and not to let cleaning solution dry on the floor. Nothing acidic ever touches cement terrazzo; it etches the matrix.

As close as the aggregate allows. Mid-century Pinellas floors used white, gray, tan, pink, green, and black marble chips in white, gray, or tinted cement, and matching means selecting chip color and size and tinting the matrix. The NTMA guide is honest that a match may not be exact, and so are we.

Usually, but it is the most expensive starting point. Tile removal runs $4 to $5 per square foot, the thinset has to be ground off, and the terrazzo will show pitting where the tile crew scarified it. All of that is repairable, and the result is the original floor. Send a photo of the tile edge at a doorway and we can often tell what is under it.

The brass or zinc strips divide the cement terrazzo into panels so shrinkage and slab movement crack at the strip instead of across the floor. Louis Del Turco of Harrington, New Jersey patented the metal divider strip in 1921 according to the NTMA, and cement terrazzo still calls for strips on roughly a four-by-four-foot grid. Bent or missing strips are reset or replaced in matching metal during repair.

Yes: Gulfport, Pinellas Park, Seminole, Largo, Clearwater, and Dunedin. Pinellas County is a peninsula 38 miles long and 15 miles wide, so nothing on that list is far, and photo quotes mean the address does not change the square-foot price.

Photo quotes usually come back the same day. Scheduling depends on the season; the months after a storm are busy across the county. Repairs cure before grinding and the sealer cures before furniture goes back, so plan on the floor being finished a day or two after the last grinding pass.