Installation Hub
Step by step, written for someone standing in their garage.
Two days, one grinder, and a clock you cannot argue with. This is the whole job in order, with the timings that actually matter and the two places people get caught out.
Before you start: three things that decide the outcome
| What to check | Why | |
|---|---|---|
| Temperature | Slab and air at 55°F or above, and rising | The primer is the coldest-sensitive layer in the system. The topcoat will cure at 15°F, but you never get to the topcoat without the primer |
| Dew point | Air at least 5°F above it | Condensation on a slab you cannot see is a bond breaker |
| Moisture | Tape test overnight, no darkening underneath | Vapour coming up through the slab pushes a coating off from beneath. How to test |
The primer sets the floor for the whole job. It is worth repeating because it is counter-intuitive: two of the five coatings in this system are polyaspartics that cure down to 15°F, which sounds like a winter install is fine. It is not, because the layer underneath them needs 55°F.
The sequence
| Step | Working time once mixed | Before the next coat | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 am | Prepare the slab. Degrease, grind to ICRI CSP 3–5, repair, vacuum twice. Full guide | — | Dust-free and dry |
| Day 1 pm | Anvil Prime. Rolled thin, 5 mil nominal. Seals the concrete and stops outgassing | 20 minutes | 5 hours minimum, 96 hours maximum |
| Day 2 am | Anvil Coat-AE, and broadcast. Roll the base coat and throw flake into it wet, to refusal — until the floor will not take another chip | 20 minutes | 6 hours minimum, 12 hours maximum |
| Day 2 pm | Scrape and vacuum. Knock back the chips standing proud, then vacuum the loose ones | — | Immediately |
| Day 2 pm | Anvil Coat ClearTop. The clear polyaspartic, flooded over the broadcast at 12 mil nominal | 25 minutes | — |
The two places people get caught out
1. Pot life is shorter than you think
The base coat gives you 20 minutes from the moment the two parts meet. That is not a warning about being slow — it is a decision about batch size. Mix a whole kit at once in a warm garage and it will go off in the pail before it reaches the floor, taking the kit with it.
Mix what you can spread in fifteen minutes, and get it out of the bucket. The manufacturer’s own guidance is to break a mixed unit down into roller pans immediately, because a thin spread stays cool and a deep pail cooks itself.
2. The recoat window has a maximum, not just a minimum
Everybody understands waiting long enough. The maximum is the one that ruins floors. Past it, the coat below has cured too far for the next one to bond into it chemically, and the only fix is to abrade the whole floor and start that layer again.
| Layer | Window | If you miss it |
|---|---|---|
| Anvil Prime | 5 hours minimum, 96 hours maximum | Four days is generous. Hard to miss |
| Anvil Coat-AE | 6 hours minimum, 12 hours maximum | The tight one. Abrade and recoat |
| Anvil Coat-EP | 10 hours minimum, 72 hours maximum | Abrade and recoat |
| Anvil Coat-EP Ultra | 3 hours minimum, 24 hours maximum | Abrade and recoat |
The base coat’s six-to-twelve-hour window is why this is a two-day job with an early start on day two, rather than a leisurely one. Broadcast in the morning and the topcoat goes down that afternoon — not the next morning.
When you can use the floor
| Wait | Why | |
|---|---|---|
| Walk on it | 10 hours at 70°F; we say wait 24 | The topcoat reaches light foot traffic quickly; we round up because a footprint at hour eleven is permanent |
| Put furniture back | 120 hours | Point loads need the full cure, not the functional one |
| Park on it | 5 days | A hot tire is the hardest thing this floor will ever be asked to do. The body coat governs here, not the topcoat, and it is the slowest layer in the stack |
Cold extends all of it. These figures are at 70°F, and a 50°F garage is not a little slower — it is substantially slower at every stage. If the slab is cold, plan for a third day before parking on it.
What is in the system, and why
| Layer | Chemistry | Its job |
|---|---|---|
| Anvil Prime | multifunctional epoxy, modified phenalkamine hardener | Penetrates and seals the concrete, stops outgassing, and tolerates the oil an old garage slab has soaked up |
| Anvil Coat-AE | functional isocyanate polyaspartic | The body coat that holds the flake. Impact resistant, and cures down to 15°F |
| Anvil Coat ClearTop | polyaspartic, UV stable | The clear layer everything actually touches. UV stable, so it does not yellow in a sunlit doorway |
Two of these are polyaspartics, not epoxies. That is where the cold cure, the impact resistance and the UV stability come from — an epoxy topcoat in a doorway that gets afternoon sun will amber, and this one will not. More on why each layer is what it is.
Guides
Measuring your garage · Floor preparation · Testing for moisture · If there is already a coating down · The day itself