Polished Concrete North Austin
Polished concrete in North Austin is the slab already under your building, worked down through diamond grit stages then hardened with a densifier. Nothing goes on top of it. We work across the district, from the post-war streets south of Anderson Lane to the newer development around the Domain.
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Someone walks the floor before we price it, at no charge. On this side of town that visit matters more than most, because the building stock spans seventy years and the two ends need different conversations.
That spread is the defining thing about working here. A slab poured in 1958 and a slab poured in 2019 are the same material and almost nothing else in common.
Most of what we do here is residential. Kitchens, hallways, living areas, usually where carpet or tile is coming up and the slab underneath turns out to be in better shape than anyone expected.
Garages are the other half, and they arrive the same way everywhere: a coating that started lifting at the door edge and kept going.
What polishing won’t do is hide the slab. It shows what’s underneath, including old patches and previous repairs, so we’ll say what comes out and what stays before anything starts rather than halfway through.
What we find on North Austin slabs
North Austin covers a wider spread of building ages than anywhere else we work, and the two ends of it need different conversations entirely.
Crestview, Wooten and Brentwood sit between Burnet Road and North Lamar, roughly from Koenig Lane up to Anderson Lane. Crestview was built on a former dairy farm through the 1950s and early 1960s, largely for veterans buying under the GI Bill, and the Allandale ranch houses west of Burnet date from the same stretch. Across 78757 and the older parts of 78752, these are among the oldest residential slab-on-grade floors in the city.
That age brings one thing worth knowing. Many slabs from that era went down without a vapor retarder underneath, because the practice wasn’t standard yet. It doesn’t rule out polishing. It does mean we take a moisture reading before deciding anything, and the result changes which sealer we’d specify.
Sixty years also means almost nothing is original. Additions, converted garages and enclosed porches are common here, and concrete laid decades apart doesn’t grind the same.
North of Braker Lane the picture changes. Gracywoods, Scofield Farms and Quail Creek across 78758 and 78753 are 1970s onward, and those slabs behave predictably.
Then North Burnet, bounded by Braker, Metric Boulevard and Research Boulevard, where the Domain opened in 2007 and a 2,300-acre master plan has reshaped the area since. Large modern slabs, laid to commercial tolerances.
One practical note. The Burnet Road corridor is under construction from Koenig Lane to MoPac. Access and parking along it are worse than usual, and we schedule around it rather than discover it on the day.
How the work runs
Assessment. We check hardness, flatness, cracking, coating history and whether moisture is moving up through the slab. On a 1950s house the moisture question comes first, because of the vapor retarder issue. On a newer build it’s a shorter conversation.
Preparation. Old coatings, adhesive, paint and tile thinset come off mechanically rather than with solvents. Cracks that have settled get filled with color-matched material so they read as part of the floor rather than as obvious repairs. On a house of this age there are usually decades of tack strip holes around every perimeter, and all of them need filling.
Grinding. Coarse diamond tooling opens the surface and flattens high spots. This is the dusty stage, and we run vacuum extraction throughout while sealing off rooms we aren’t working in so the rest of the house stays usable.
What we watch for is how evenly the slab opens. On a newer build it opens consistently across the whole footprint. In a mid-century house that’s been extended, it rarely does, and that changes what we can promise about a uniform finish.
Densifying. Lithium densifier reacts with free lime inside the concrete and hardens the slab from within. That’s what makes the surface abrasion resistant rather than merely smooth, and on an older slab it does more work than on a new one, because early-era concrete is often softer at the surface.
Polishing. Progressively finer grit stages take the floor to the sheen you choose. Matte hides dust and suits garages and workshops. Satin sits in the middle and works through most of a house. Higher sheen carries light across an open room and shows every footprint along with it.
Grinding depth is a separate decision from sheen. Stay shallow for a cream finish with little stone showing, or go deeper and the aggregate appears. On a 1950s slab that aggregate is often more varied than in a modern pour, which some people find appealing and others don’t, so we bring samples rather than photographs.
Most residential jobs run a few days. A whole ground floor takes longer, and we’ll give you a realistic window rather than an optimistic one.
Sealing. A penetrating sealer guards against oil and water staining. It soaks into the concrete rather than sitting on top of it, so there’s nothing on the surface to wear through where the traffic concentrates, and nothing to reapply on a schedule.
Why North Austin homeowners work with us
We only polish. Not coatings, not overlays, not staining. On a post-war slab that matters, because those floors have often been through several owners and several ideas about what should go on top of them.
We assess before we quote, and estimates are free. Nobody prices a floor accurately over the phone, and on stock this old the condition of the slab decides the timeline far more than the square footage does.
We’re straight about limitations. A mid-century house that’s been extended twice may not polish to a uniform finish across a room, and you’ll hear that at the assessment rather than after the grinders have run and half the house is out of use.
We’d also rather turn a floor down than take on one that won’t give you the result you’re picturing, and we do that more often than most would admit.
North Austin is close enough that scheduling rarely holds a job up, which matters more than it sounds when a floor means moving out of half the house for a few days.
We’ve been grinding Central Texas floors since 2012, more than 1,000 of them. Fully insured, no subcontractors. We hold no certifications we can’t show you and name no trade bodies we don’t belong to.
Frequently asked questions
How much does polished concrete in North Austin cost?
It depends on the slab more than the square footage. A 1950s house with sixty years of flooring layers takes considerably longer to prepare than a newer build under carpet, and preparation is where most of the labour goes. A garage with a failed coating adds time on top. Estimates are free and include someone coming to look at the floor first.
My house is from the 1950s. Is the slab too old to polish?
Age matters less than condition, and old slabs often polish beautifully. What we check is moisture, because slabs from that era were frequently poured without a vapor retarder, and whether the house has been extended. Additions mean more than one pour, and pours laid decades apart grind differently. Neither rules it out.
What's under the carpet in a Crestview or Allandale house?
Usually tack strip holes around every room, layers of adhesive, and often tile thinset where a kitchen or bathroom was redone at some point. Sometimes self-levelling compound. None of it rules out polishing. It’s simply the main thing that decides how long the preparation stage runs and what the quote looks like.
Can you work on commercial space near the Domain?
Yes, and those slabs are usually straightforward. Development in that corridor is recent and poured to commercial tolerances, so it grinds evenly. The variables are coating history where a unit has changed hands, and trading hours, because we section commercial floors and work through them in phases rather than closing a space.
Will an addition show in the finished floor?
Often, yes. Where a room was extended, the newer concrete meets the original and the two can differ in aggregate and tone. It can look deliberate once polished and it can look like a mistake, and which one you get is worth establishing with samples before committing rather than discovering afterwards.
How do I look after it?
A dust mop for grit and a pH-neutral cleaner with a damp mop for anything wet. That’s the routine. No waxing, no stripping and no resealing schedule, because there’s no coating on the surface to renew. After years of traffic the sheen softens along walkways, and one burnishing visit puts it back.
Book a free estimate
Based in Austin, Texas, working throughout North Austin and the surrounding metro. Open Monday to Friday, 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
Call (512) 900-5938 or request an estimate and we’ll arrange a time to look at the floor.
