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How to clean the oil from your concrete garage floor!

By Gary Bitsicas posted 10-23-2017 01:20 PM

  
Before and after photo of this project.
If you keep an older car in the garage, chances are you'll see a few oil stains on the garage floor before long. If you want to keep your garage clean, and not track in oil into your house, you'll want to remove those stains. Removing oil stains from a garage floor isn't as difficult as you might think, but it does take a little work. Here is how I did it! 

Tools you will need:

  • Safety Glasses
  • Rubber Gloves
  • Old Pair of Shoes
  • Steel Wire Brush
  • Cat Litter (I found a 25 lbs bag for less than $5.00)
  • TSP Cleaner

Step 1: Absorption

If you have a fresh oil stain you will need to soak up as much oil as you can before you start the stain removal process.  I dumped the cat litter on the oil and pressed the cat litter into the oil with my body weight using a pair of shoes I did not care about. Let the cat litter sit for 30 minutes and then clear the area, I used a broom.

Pour the cat litter on the fresh oil.

Step 2: Saturate

Saturate the stain with the TSP cleaning solution and let it sit for 30 minutes. Make sure to wear eye protection and rubber gloves. 

TSP solution used to clean the oil stains

Step 3: Scrub

Oil stains in a porous material such as concrete require a bit of elbow grease. Using the right tools will save your arms a lot of strain, so buy a quality wire brush. Work the brush in a circular motion or push the brush up and down then left to right, reapplying TSP cleaning solution as needed. 

Use the wire brush to scrub the stains out of the concrete.

Step 4: Absorption

After scrubbing you will need to soak up as much TSP cleaning solution as you can.  I dumped the cat litter on the TSP cleaning solution and pressed the cat litter into the solution with my body weight. Let the cat litter sit for 30 minutes.

Step 4: Clean

To clear the area, I used a combination of a broom and a leaf blower. I found it easier to clean up by blowing the cat litter into a corner to scoop up with a dustpan. There will be a layer of dust from the cat litter you can clean off with a hose. 

A leaf bower is used to clean the cat litterA dustpan is used to clean the cat litter.A hose is used to clean the cat litter dust.
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