How to remove motor oil and grease stains from your driveway
Motor oil and grease can leak from cars onto the ground below them causing noticeable and ugly stains.
Below I’ve collected tips for removing oil stains from concrete and driveways, so you can clean up after these messes and get on with your life.
There are really several parts to this process though.
First, you’ve got to clean up the fresh oil or grease drips, removing as much of the liquid that has spilled from the surface of the concrete or driveway.
Once the fresh oil is removed then the real fun begins — getting the stains it has caused removed, which is the second part of the process.
The tips below go through both of these steps in the process for you.
In addition, I have another suggestion for what to do after you remove the stains, to clean your concrete driveway, and seal it to prevent future staining. After all, after all that hard work, who wants to have to do it all over again?
Of course, there is often lots of different ways to clean oil from concrete, so I’d love to hear even more tips from you if you’ve used a home remedy, discovered a great removal method, or found a good concrete oil stain remover that worked for you.
You can share your tips here for removing concrete stains, or read other tips already submitted for cleaning this porous surface of other types of stains and dirt that have already been submitted.
Catch Oil From Dripping On Your Garage Floor With Cardboard
Soaking up fresh motor oil drips and spills from your garage floor, driveway or walk is easy to do with kitty litter.
Actually, the cheapest type of kitty litter is best for this purpose, and you just sprinkle it all over the oil which has dripped or spilled and let it sit in for a while.
You may also find it helpful to either rub the kitty litter in, with either a rough brush or stepping on it with your feet.
This helps break up all the big clumps of kitty litter and gets them in close contact with the spilled oil that you want soaked up and off your garage floor.
Once the litter has sat on the fresh spill for a while, for several hours to overnight, you can sweep it up with a broom and throw it away.
This will get rid of the viscous liquid part of the stain, but now you’ll have to deal with the stains that are left behind in the concrete floor.
Simple Tip To Prevent These Stains From Occurring
Another helpful hint is to prevent oil from actually getting onto your garage floor by using a big piece of cardboard on the ground (see the picture above for an example).
Place the cardboard under the car that is dripping oil and save yourself a lot of headaches of cleaning your floor (or having it permanently stained by the motor oil).
Remove Oil Stains From Concrete Driveway – Video Instructions
This is unfortunately a common occurrence if a car has parked on the driveway that leaks motor oil.
Once you notice this has occurred the quicker you act, the better, because concrete is a porous surface and the oil will get down in all the pores and cracks.
The more it seeps into the surface of the concrete the harder it will be to remove.
The ingredients you will need to remove the oil and grease stains from your concrete include:
- Newspapers, paper towels or rags to soak up excess motor oil and grease
- Liquid dishwashing liquid
- Scrub brush
- Hot water
- Cat litter
- Broom and dust pan
If you want to skip all these steps and get a done for you solution then give American Washing a Call (630) 353-8000
Once you soak up as much excess motor oil and grease from your concrete with the newspapers, rags or paper towels (or use the kitty litter method I suggest above) you’ll want to scrub with a scrub brush, hot water and dishwashing liquid.
The dishwashing liquid and hot water will both help break up the oil, and the scrub brush gets the stain removal solution deep down into the concrete.
***Update: Please note this is similar to the homemade formula I suggest for cleaning garage floors of oil and grease stains in another article on this site, except that I suggest using powdered dishwasher detergent. The powdered detergent is stronger than the milder dish soap, so may be a bit more effective in removing the stain. ***End Update
After rinsing your concrete driveway, next sprinkle cat litter over the oil stained area, and the cat litter will help absorb any additional oil and grease.
The next day you sweep up the cat litter, and if needed, again use hot water, dishwashing liquid and the scrub brush to get up the rest of the oil stain from your driveway.