The extra room a rowhome does not otherwise have
Allentown basements are deep, old and often damp. Coated properly one becomes usable space. Coated without testing it fails inside a year and takes your money with it.
Why we test before we quote here
Almost every basement floor we are called to repair in Allentown failed the same way. Somebody rolled a coating onto a slab nobody measured, it looked right for a season, and then it started lifting in sheets from the middle outward. That is not bad product and it is not bad luck. It is vapor coming up through concrete that was poured before anyone put plastic under a slab.
Pre war housing in this city sits on slabs that are thin by modern standards, poured directly onto soil, with no vapor barrier anywhere in the build. The water table in the Lehigh Valley is high enough that those slabs stay damp most of the year even when the basement feels dry to walk on. Concrete wicks moisture continuously and a sealed coating traps it underneath until the bond gives way.
So we test. A calcium chloride or relative humidity reading on every basement, without exception, before anything is priced. If the number is high that changes the system rather than the price of a system already chosen, and occasionally it changes the answer entirely: some basements need the water dealt with before a floor makes any sense, and Jimmy will tell you that rather than sell you a coating that is going to peel.
Cobra Epoxy and Flake Coatings, PA HIC 177204A basement that has never been tested is a basement nobody can honestly quote.
Where a rowhome basement fights the coating
Moisture reading first
Taken across the floor, not in one corner. An old slab gives different numbers six feet apart, and the highest one decides the system.
Grinding, not etching
Diamond tooling opens the concrete and takes off old paint, sealer and whatever the last owner rolled on. Acid etching does very little on a slab this age.
Columns and edges
Lally columns, stair stringers and the perimeter get cut in by hand. That edge work is where a cheap job shows itself within a year.
Carried, not driven
Rowhome access means grinders, vacuums and product come down a narrow stair by hand. It takes longer and it goes in the quote at the walkthrough.
What you actually get at the end
A finished basement floor is seamless, so there is no grout line and no tile edge for damp to sit in, and it cleans with a mop rather than a scrub. Flake gives it texture underfoot, which matters on a floor that will occasionally have water on it from a laundry or a heater, and the chip pattern hides the unevenness that every old slab has.
The practical difference is that the room becomes usable. A coated basement in a rowhome with no garage and no attic is genuinely the only additional square footage that house is ever going to get, which is why we do so many of them here.
On timing, most single basements are two days: grinding and prep on the first, base coat and broadcast on the second, with topcoats following. You can walk on it the next day and put furniture back after about three. Humidity stretches that, and in a Lehigh Valley August we would rather add a day than have you load a floor that has not fully hardened.
If your basement has an active water problem, standing water after rain, efflorescence on the walls, a sump running constantly, tell us on the phone. That is a drainage conversation before it is a flooring one, and taking your money for a coating on top of it would be dishonest.
Send the details over and Jimmy will call inside a business day.Coated properly, a rowhome basement is the only extra room that house will ever get.
Where we work in Allentown
We cover the whole city, from the rowhome grid in center city and the West End out to the newer stock on the edges, and across the rest of Lehigh County. Most Allentown basement jobs are booked a week or two out depending on season.
Questions
Basement questions from Allentown
What people here ask before they book a walkthrough.
Will a coating fix a damp basement?
No, and anybody who tells you it will is selling you a problem. A coating is a surface, not a waterproofing system. If water is actively coming in, that has to be dealt with first, through grading, gutters, drainage or a sump, and then a coating makes sense. What a coating does fix is the constant dust an old bare slab throws off, and it makes the room cleanable.
My basement has been painted before. Does that come off?
Yes, all of it. Old floor paint is the most common thing we grind off in this city and it almost never comes up evenly, which is a good sign of how poorly it was bonded. Coating over it just means the new floor is only as attached as the paint underneath, which is to say barely.
How do you get equipment into a rowhome basement?
By hand, down the stairs. That is normal here and it is planned rather than discovered. It is one of the reasons a city basement takes longer than a suburban one of the same size, and it goes into the number at the walkthrough so there is no surprise on the morning.
Is there a smell, and do we have to leave?
There is an odor during install and for a few hours after. Most families stay in the house and keep the basement door shut with a window cracked down there if there is one. If anybody in the house is particularly sensitive, tell us and we will talk through the lower odor options before booking.
Can you do it around the furnace and the water heater?
Yes. We cut in around appliances, the oil tank and anything else that cannot move, and we mask the bases. What we cannot do is coat under a unit that stays put, so there will be an uncoated footprint under it. That is normal and nobody sees it.
How long does it last?
On a properly prepped basement slab with the moisture handled, a long time. Residential interiors carry our lifetime warranty, which we can only offer because we test first rather than hoping. A floor that was never tested is the one that comes back.
Book a walkthrough
Book a walkthrough for your basement
Tell us roughly the square footage, whether the basement has ever had water in it, and what is down there now. Jimmy will call inside a business day and come and read the slab before anything is quoted.
Made in the USA product, OSHA certified crew, PA HIC 177204. Call (484) 942-3219 or send the details over.
Tell us about the floor
A quick description is enough to start. Expect a call back within a business day.
Related work in Allentown
Basements often go in alongside a garage floor where the house has one, and the same flake system is what we use in both. If your slab has cracking or lifted joints, that is repair work first. Full system detail on the main basement epoxy flooring page, and finished floors are in the gallery. We work across Allentown and Lehigh County.