About Tampa Terrazzo Restoration

Tampa Terrazzo Restoration is an independently operated local service that restores the cement terrazzo floors in Hillsborough County’s mid-century houses. We are not connected to any other company with “terrazzo” and “Tampa” in its name; this is our own business, and the only floors we work on are in Tampa and the county around it.

What we believe about these floors

The terrazzo in a 1960 Town ‘n’ Country or Carrollwood house was ground flat and polished on site by a crew with a machine, and the right way to bring it back is the same way: grind it and polish it. Diamonds and water, a series of grits from coarse to fine, a penetrating sealer at the end. We do not sell shine coats, acrylic “terrazzo finishes” or wax. The National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association’s own care guide tells owners not to use purely surface waxes or all-purpose sealers, and anyone who has watched a coated floor turn yellow in a sunny Florida room knows why.

We also believe in telling people the bad news before the work starts. The NTMA restoration specification says it plainly: color matching existing aggregates “may not be exact,” and “all staining in existing terrazzo may not be possible to remove.” That is true of every floor we look at. A patch is visible if you kneel down and look for it. A pet stain that has soaked into the cement for twenty years usually fades and rarely disappears. You should know which marks on your floor fall into which group before you sign anything, and we will tell you from the photos.

How a job runs

Photos first. A closet corner with the carpet folded back, the worst spot with a coin beside it, and the rough square footage. From that we can usually tell cement from epoxy, see the chip size, and spot glue, tile or coating.
A written range. We price from the same table that is on the pricing page. Nothing on this site is a teaser number.
A look at the exposed floor. Under tile and heavy glue nobody can see the terrazzo, so the firm number is confirmed once the covering is off. The NTMA spec allows for exactly this, noting that a contractor may need to reevaluate once substrates are uncovered.
The work. Removal, patching, grinding, honing, polishing and sealing, room by room if you are living in the house. Grinding is done wet or with vacuum shrouds; the OSHA silica rule for floor grinders calls for one or the other, and it keeps the dust out of the rest of your house.
Care instructions you can follow. Plain water and a pH-neutral cleaner. No vinegar, no bleach, no ammonia. The sealing and maintenance page has the routine.

Why Hillsborough, and only Hillsborough

The county has a lot of this floor and very little of it is visible. In a pull of 1,103 county property records, 105 of the 464 houses built between 1950 and 1972 listed terrazzo as their flooring and none of the 595 newer ones did; the rest of those mid-century houses mostly read carpet, tile or wood, and those coverings are exactly where buried terrazzo would be filed. We would rather know these streets well than cover half of Florida thinly. Pinellas County, across the bay, is outside our area.

What we will not claim

Florida law bars local governments from requiring a license for terrazzo installation (Florida Statutes 489.117(4)(a)), so many terrazzo companies have no license number to show you, and a local license is not something a city or county can demand of them. What you can and should ask any contractor for, including us, is proof of insurance and a straight description of the method. We do not publish reviews, job counts or staff names on this site, and we do not promise dates or results we cannot see yet.

If you want to start, the floor cost estimator gives you a typical range in a minute, the FAQ answers the usual questions, and the quote form on every page takes your photos.