Pennsylvania · ASHRAE Zone 4A & 5A (Northeast Mixed Freeze-Thaw)
Pennsylvania renovations start with what is already on the floor
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh sets are often renovations: an existing wood floor, a basement slab, a hospital or university campus with a long finish schedule. Freeze-thaw still matters at the entries. The mistake the old city pages made was describing all of that as one swapped headline.
Existing floors
Demo, encapsulate, or refinish are three different lines. Measure the area of each from the demolition plan. A new engineered floor over a prepared substrate does not include sanding the old floor unless the spec says both.
Basement slabs
Below-grade slabs are a moisture question before they are a finish question. Carry the test and any specified mitigation as their own items, using the product instructions. Do not publish a statewide radon or moisture number.
Campus and hospital schedules
Room-by-room finish codes, the same method as any other healthcare job. Pennsylvania does not get a special hospital unit price on this site.
Worked engineered-wood allowance over a prepared floor
- Second-floor rooms to receive new engineered wood: 1,280 sq ft. Straight lay. Demo of the existing carpet is a separate 1,280 sq ft if the demo plan says to remove it.
- Illustrative 7% straight-lay allowance, inside the 5–8% band: 1,280 × 1.07 = 1,369.6 sq ft.
- If the carton covers 25 sq ft: 1,369.6 ÷ 25 = 54.8, so 55 cartons.
- Basement slab tile is not in this count.
The allowance is an example inside a band already published on this site. It is not a local price and not a required waste factor.
Place names covered by this note
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Reading, Erie, Upper Darby, Scranton, Bethlehem, Lancaster.
Material methods that do not depend on the state: waste bands, moisture tests, estimating scope.
Questions from Pennsylvania plan sets
Do you include Philadelphia wage rates?
No. If the project is covered by a determination, use that document’s rate. It is not reprinted here.
Why keep one state page instead of city pages?
The city pages were the same essay. The renovation-versus-new split above is the part that changes the estimate, and it is already covered without a hundred URLs.