Oil Spill on concrete

[jacwjames]

I new eventually it was bound to happen.  I was working on my log splitter and dumped a bunch of ISO32 hydraulic oil on the concrete in my garage.  What a mess.   I wiped up the excess oil but there is still a layer of slippery oil.

Looking for suggestions on getting the oil up and possibly stain out of the concrete.    I do have access to water and it is located next to a drain so it won't spread to the rest of the garage. 

[JDCrow]

I have no direct experience, but man the cola videos on YouTube. Real or not a I can’t say. 
 

Concrete is just so porous, it’s hard to draw up anything. Molecules are so small and stain like crazy as you know.

Before I sold my home I ended up etching the garage floor and using the garage floor paint from Home Depot. It wasn’t scratch resistant, but did keep the oil from penetrating and I could touch up and scratches in the coating 

[bradc344]

cat litter will help get some of it up , I have sprayed the area with wd40 let it sit and then pressure wash the area ,if you are very careful us some deluted meratic acid about 50/50 with water but dont leave it on very long or it will itch the floor ,

[Mark B]

Power tide laundry detergent. Sprinkle some in the spill area and let it set. Then brush it with a push broom. It may take a couple of applications over a few days.

[RNMCBR]

Try this:

Grind up some cat litter with your foot on the concrete. The finer the better. Then mix this up with some acetone to make a wet paste. Spread this thick over the oil spot and cover with plastic, taping down the edges. Let it sit overnight. Clean it up and check your progress. If needed, repeat. 

[Ivan K]

Driveway & Concrete cleaner with power washer, if you can afford the overspray.

[Tom Wallis]

First and the sooner after the spill the better, poor some gasoline on the the spot and scrub it with a broom. Don't be stingy with the gas and wipe up any residue with rags. You may even want to repeat this step. Then use any kind of degreaser or detergent and water on the spot and once again scrub with a broom. Finally, if you have a pressure washer wash it down thoroughly.

I'm a retired mechanic and I've been cleaning oil off of concrete my hole life. There are no oil stains on my garage floor.

Muriatic acid will remove stains from concrete however it etches the surface an makes it more porous and much harder to clean in the future.

Epoxy paint is awesome for shop floors. The only down side is it's very slippery when wet.

[jacwjames]

Thanks for the replies.  When I spilled the oil yesterday I cleaned it up as soon as I could with some rags.  So it was just the residual I was try to get up. 

I remembered that I had gotten some concentrated purple cleaner when I was cleaning up my jack pump/motor so I thought what the heck.  I sprayed the area completely down and then used a heavy bristly broom/brush and went to town.  I then washed it down with the water hose.  Surprisingly it did a really good job of getting up the remainder and from what I can tell the oil didn't leave a stain. 

 

 

[Mike H]

Generous amounts of Dawn dish washing liquid will cut through it and let it soak.  There's also a spray foam you can get for cleaning engines that works well .... a brain fart made me forget the name of it 😞

[JDCrow]

17 minutes ago, Mike H said:

Generous amounts of Dawn dish washing liquid will cut through it and let it soak.  There's also a spray foam you can get for cleaning engines that works well .... a brain fart made me forget the name of it 😞

Castrol purple degreaser does an insane job on engines. Stuff is gold 

[Notn2bars]

Ditto on the cat litter and and Dawn dish liquid!!! God Bless, Ed & Sylvia

[Mike H]

1 hour ago, JDCrow said:

Castrol purple degreaser does an insane job on engines. Stuff is gold 

Never tried that but have heard it works well.  GUNK is the stuff I was thinking about, that I used to use on my car engines, and that stuff has been around forever.

[LakeBob]

Simple Green is also very good, used it on a leak on a brand new brick paver site we stayed at last winter. 

[Craggar]

I always have brake clean around and use it for small stains. 

[Guest Ray Davis]

Cat litter, cheap clay type.  I have cleaned some pretty nasty oil stains.  What has worked for me is to cover a fresh spill right away with the cat litter and grind it in with my shoes then sweep it up. After that and for old stains douse with gasoline and do the cat litter again, keep grinding, let dry for a while.  Repeat over and over until you are satisfied.  The gas will soak into the stain, mix with the oil, and the litter will draw it out.  After the gas eva[orates from the litter it woeks pretty good again.

With the price of gas new concrete might be cheaper.  LOL  

Caution with the gasoline especially in the garage, all doors open and no sparks or flames.

[jacwjames]

Last week I was putting some oil in my wife's car and spilled some and made a pretty good mess.  I uses some engine degreaser on the engine and washed it off.  I then tried the engine degreaser on the concrete, it didn't work and actually stained the concrete after it dried.  So I didn't even try that yesterday. 

Just happened to see the Purple Cleaner next to the coach and gave it a try.  The area is now completely dry and there's no evidence of the oil spill. 

[Larry Badger]

Dawn dish soap

[bobdinsmore]

Some great solutions given here. Thanks.

After you remove the spot you might want to try concrete hardener for concrete floors to seal the floor. I did this 58 years ago because I was tracking all that concrete dust into the house. Not only did it fix that but I never had an oil spill that couldn't easily be picked up with cat litter followed by dabbing up the remainder with paper towels and gasoline after sweeping up the kitty litter.

[Jdw12345]

I haven’t read every ones response but, In my shop, on the concrete, to clean up oil or grease first I wipe up as much as I can with paper towels then I use an old fashion mop with the I believe it is a cotton mop head and pour plan old solvent on the mop and clean the floor. The solvent will cut the stain pick up any oil/grease residue then it evaporates after 20-30 minutes and your floor is returned to appearance prior to the spill. After the mop dries I shake it out and set it aside for the next clean up. Been doing this for many years, being in the trucking business for years there’s always grease droppings from the trucks and equipment on the shop floor and the occasional oil spillage of some sort.

 I purchase the solvent in 5 gallon pals at Fleet Farm in Minnesota, I’m sure everyone has some type of farm supply store or parts house close by to pick it up. 
 That’s what I do. 

[jacwjames]

When I was building my garage I did quite a bit of research on concrete.  When I built my house the concrete finishers all used a sealer, put it on as soon as the concrete was dry enough to walk on.  After researching I found they did this to hold it in the moisture to help the concrete cure.  But in reality this isn't the best option, it is probably the cheapest from their stand point but not the best option.

Reading up on curing concrete the best option for strength is doing a wet cure, with flooding being the best.  To do this you would surround the poured/finished concrete with a berm and flood it.  Needless to say this isn't an easy task.  Next option was to continually wet the concrete for as long as you can stand to do it.  So when my concrete was poured and finished I kept it wet for about 10 days, getting up early in the AM and wetting it down and then doing that every ~1.5 hours during daylight hours.  This would result in a much stronger concrete.  So far so good, no cracks.

The crew that finished the concrete put a pretty slick finish on it, at times having 2 large rotary finishers working.  This resulted in a pretty smooth fine finish which does not allow a lot of  spills to soak in which may have helped with my oil spill.  Only speculation but maybe all the effort was worth it ( or at least that what I keep telling myself)!!

[Guest KenAVTech]

Go to Home Depot and purchase ZEP Spill absorber! It’s basically Speedi Dry used in the mechanics world. It’s clay like old kitty litter. Spread it on the oil spot leave it for a day or 2 and it will suck the oil out of the floor. It’s been around for 75+ years!

[Tom Whitlow]

I've used this Oil Stain Remover with some decent results.

https://www.amazon.com/Oil-Vanish-8005-020-Remvr16oz/dp/B00KDP3E14/ref=asc_df_B00KDP3E14/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309760520871&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11903520309780424676&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012319&hvtargid=pla-637883963963&psc=1