Slip Resistance

The broadcast is the slip resistance. There is no additive, no separate anti-slip step and no texture applied at the end — the texture of the finished floor is the flake standing in the base coat, showing through the clear.

Where the texture comes from

Flake is broadcast into the wet base coat until the floor will not accept any more. It lands at every angle, and a great deal of it lands on edge and stays on edge. Once the base has cured, the loose material is swept off and the surface is scraped flat, which knocks down the worst of the high points but does not remove the profile.

The clear topcoat then flows around what is left. It fills between the flakes but does not bury them, so the finished surface has a fine, even profile across the whole floor rather than a smooth film with a pattern printed under it. Broadcasting to refusal is what makes that profile consistent: a partial broadcast gives you textured patches and smooth patches.

This is exactly the mechanism the data sheets describe. An industrial build broadcasts 20/40 mesh silica sand to refusal for a non-slip finish — the sand is there for grip, not for looks. ANVIL broadcasts flake by the same method into the same wet base coat, so the texture is produced the same way. What the sheet does not do is measure the flake version, and that distinction is the point of the note further down this page.

Textured is not the same as grippy

This is the part worth being straight about, because photographs of glossy flake floors do not communicate it.

A full broadcast flake floor with a clear topcoat has a texture something like fine orange peel. It is noticeably less slippery than sealed or polished concrete, and it is a great deal less slippery than a smooth epoxy floor with no broadcast at all. It is not grit tape, it is not a safety-yellow anti-slip walkway, and it will not behave like one.

Wet, it is more slippery than dry. Wet with oil on it, more so again. Snow melting off a car in winter makes the parking area the slipperiest part of the floor, and no coating changes that. Treat it as a hard floor that can be wet, because that is what it is.

The trade-off, stated as a trade-off

Grip and cleanability pull in opposite directions, and a garage floor is asked for both. More aggressive texture means more grip. It also means dirt lodges in the profile, a mop drags rather than glides, and the floor is unpleasant to kneel on — which matters in a room where people kneel next to cars, sit on the floor to sort fasteners, and let children walk about barefoot.

ANVIL sells the flake texture because it is the balance most people actually want in a garage: enough profile that you are not skating on it, smooth enough that you can sweep it, mop it and work on it. That is a choice, not a compromise we are hiding. If your floor has a drain, a slope, a wash bay or somebody unsteady on their feet using it, the balance for you may be different — and that is a conversation to have before you order rather than after. Whether ANVIL offers an anti-slip additive for the topcoat is not settled: anti-slip additive not yet offered. Talk to us about it.

Related: why the broadcast goes to refusal, where it happens in the build.