Alburtis, the closest Lehigh County borough
A small borough on Route 100 that is nearer to Boyertown than most of Lehigh County. Small jobs are worth doing here.
Alburtis, Lehigh County
What Alburtis concrete is like
Alburtis is a small borough sitting on Route 100 between Boyertown and Macungie, and it is the nearest part of Lehigh County to us. That distance matters, because it means a single bay garage, a set of front steps or a small basement is worth doing properly here rather than being priced to cover a long drive.
The borough grew around the old Lock Ridge furnace, and the housing near the center carries that age. Block basements, hand poured slabs and small garages set behind the houses. Newer development sits around the edges on modern concrete, so the two conversations run side by side in a town of this size.
The exterior work is worth flagging here as it is in the other old boroughs. Steps, stoops, porches and paths on older properties are usually the most weathered concrete on the site, and a step nosing that has started to break down goes from a cheap seal to a structural repair quite quickly. Catching that while it is still sound is the sensible move.
Because Alburtis is the closest Lehigh County borough to us, it is the one place up here where a genuinely small job still makes sense on its own. A porch, a set of steps, one bay. Elsewhere in the county we might suggest pairing it with something nearby, here we can simply come and do it.
The person who quoted your job is the person holding the grinder.
Cobra Epoxy, Boyertown PAServices here
What we get asked for in Alburtis
Everything we do is available in Alburtis. These three come up the most, and the full list is here.
Garage Epoxy Flooring
Coved base, cut termination at the door, and a slab that was opened up properly first.
Patio Epoxy Flooring
Steps and walks too, where a lost nosing turns into a structural repair.
Basement Epoxy Flooring
Turns the coldest room in the house into one somebody would actually sit in.
Nearby in Lehigh County: Emmaus·Macungie·Allentown·Trexlertown·Coopersburg
Prep is the whole job
Almost every coating failure this trade produces traces back to preparation. A slab that was acid etched or pressure washed instead of mechanically ground never gave the coating a profile to key into, so the film is held on by surface tension and nothing else. One winter of road salt and a hot tire takes it off in sheets.
So we grind. Diamond grinders with dust extraction, down to clean open concrete, every time and on every job. Then the repairs, because coating over a crack just prints its shape through the finish and it opens again anyway. Only then does the first coat go down.
That is the part customers in this area keep writing reviews about, and it is the reason residential interior floors carry a true lifetime warranty. We are not going to shortcut the stage that decides whether we get a phone call in three years.
Road salt is doing more than making a mess
Salt gets treated as a housekeeping problem. It is doing considerably more than that. Salt water freezes at a lower temperature, so it stays liquid longer and travels further into a slab before it freezes, which means it does its damage deeper inside the concrete rather than at the surface.
It also attacks chemically, working on the cement paste that holds the aggregate together. That is why the concrete around a garage door opening, which takes the heaviest salt exposure of anything on a property, is almost always the first part to break up.
Every car picks it up off the road from the first gritting run and drips it onto the same patch of garage floor overnight for four months. Sealing the floor is the only part of that chain a homeowner actually controls.
On the map
Alburtis is 14 miles from the shop
We are based in Boyertown and run roughly fifty miles out, so Alburtis is comfortably inside the normal working radius. Local reference points around here include Route 100 and the Lock Ridge Furnace park.
Nearby towns we also cover include Macungie, Emmaus, Barto. If you are on the edge of that and not sure, call and ask rather than assuming. It costs nothing to find out.
Questions
Questions from Alburtis
What people here tend to ask before they book a walkthrough.
Are you actually local or is this a franchise?
Local, and small on purpose. Cobra is Jimmy and Justyn plus the crew, working out of Boyertown for three years. The person who quotes your job is the person holding the grinder, and there is no call center in between.
Does the freeze and thaw damage coated concrete too?
Not the way it damages bare concrete. The mechanism is water soaking into the pore structure, freezing overnight, expanding and pushing the surface apart from the inside. A sealed surface does not let the water in, so the cycle has nothing to work on. Untreated concrete next to it keeps pitting every year.
How long will my garage be out of use?
Most residential garages are a two day job. Day one is grinding, repair, base coat and the flake broadcast. Day two is the scrape back and the polyaspartic topcoat. You can usually walk on it that evening and put the car back after about three days, which gives the system time to harden properly before hot tires sit on it.
Can you test before I commit to anything?
Yes, and on any basement or older slab we do it as part of the walkthrough rather than after you have agreed to the work. It is the one measurement that can change the answer from yes to not yet, so taking it early is in everybody interest.
There is a crack right across my garage. Is that bad?
Usually not. A single crack running across a slab is very often a shrinkage crack from the original cure, and if it has not moved in years it repairs permanently. What matters is whether the two sides are level. Run a hand across it, and if you can feel a step, that is movement and a different conversation.
Is the warranty actually in writing?
Yes, you get it on paper. It covers the residential interior system against loss of bond, so peeling and delamination, for as long as you own the floor. We are comfortable offering that because the preparation is done properly, and a floor that was ground and repaired before the first coat does not come off. Outdoor work carries its own separate terms.
Do we need to move out?
No. Interior work is contained to the room being done, with doorways masked and extraction running on the grinders. People stay in the house for garage and basement jobs as a matter of routine. What is worth doing is keeping pets out of the working area, mostly for the noise.
Is the work subcontracted out?
No. Cobra is deliberately small, which means Justyn is on the floor and Jimmy has seen every job that goes out. We could take on more crews and more trucks tomorrow, but the standard is only reliable while we are standing next to it, and the reviews are the thing we would lose first.
Book a walkthrough
Book a walkthrough in Alburtis
Tell us what needs coating and roughly what condition it is in. Jimmy gets back to you within a business day and comes out to walk it with you.
American made materials, OSHA certified equipment and Pennsylvania registration 177204. Residential interiors are covered for life, in writing.
If you would rather speak to somebody, (484) 942-3219. If photographs are easier, jfaust@cobraepoxy.com. Either way the contact page has everything in one place.
Tell us about the floor
Jimmy calls back within a business day, walks the space with you, and puts real pricing in your hands.
Alburtis sits in Lehigh County, one of four counties on our patch. See the full service area, browse what we coat, look through the gallery, or get in touch.