Flooring contractor in Alhambra, CA - coatings on properly prepped concrete

Ask the city's Building Division, which issues permits for most remodeling and alteration work on private property in Alhambra and tells owners whether a project needs one. A floor that's part of a bigger remodel is especially worth asking about. Before we start, I check with the office that covers your address and tell you what I find, so you know where things stand.

Yes, as an owner-builder, but then you're the responsible party of record on the permit instead of a contractor. The city lets only licensed contractors or exempt owner-builders pull permits for work the code regulates, and its owner-builder form notes that a licensed contractor holding the permit may protect you from financial risk. If you pull it yourself, you also have to carry workers' comp for relatives and anyone else working on the project, even unpaid, though that duty excludes owners living on the property and immediate family who live there too.

Only when the job is under $1,000, needs no permit and the person hires no workers, under the state's minor work exemption, which was raised from $500 to $1,000. If the job needs a permit or the person brings on help, the state licensing board says a license is required even under $1,000. We're licensed and insured, so that question doesn't come up with us.

Yes, every contractor working in Alhambra needs a city business license from the Finance Department. When a job carries a building permit, the general contractor or an owner-builder also files a Contractor's Report there showing each subcontractor holds a valid city business license, and that check takes about two weeks and has to clear before the permit is finalized. If a permit applies to your floor, that wait belongs in the schedule.

I can't give you a fair number until I've seen your slab, because the price comes from your floor's size and condition and the coating you choose. A bare, sound slab with a solid-color coat sits at the low end, while grinding off old paint, filling cracks, a moisture-blocking primer, flake or metallic finishes and a polyaspartic topcoat each add to it. The estimate puts your own figure in writing after I've looked at the floor.

Most peeling starts underneath, from a coating laid over paint, sealer, oil or a slick troweled surface it couldn't grip, or from moisture pushing up through the slab. Garage floors in Alhambra's established houses often have more than one of those, which is why we grind to clean, open concrete before mixing anything. If your floor is already peeling, the old coating has to come off completely before a new one can hold.