Oil stained driveway clean up.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Brand names for USA products.

Any easy, safe product specifically used to clean oil stains from driveways?

I’ve had so-so success in the past with laundry soap, bleach and hard bristle brushes, but, is there an easier way? Plus, I’m kind of worried about environmental hazards. Don’t want to needlessly harm anything, right?

Or, if you know a better way with general household stuff, I would be grateful for that, too.

Thanks in advance.

2

My mom swears by kitty litter, but you have to leave it on there for a few days before sweeping it off.

3

Oil-Dry which is available at just about any hardware store.
Castrol makes a really powerful degreaser than can clean the devil from driveways.

4

Black Knight Multi-purpose Asphalt cleaner.

Works well on cement too.

5

There was this household cleaner called NOW that was purported to be able to do this, but I don’t know if it’s still around. Maybe something with orange oil in it?

6

They say that you can remove motor oil off of animals with Dawn dishwashing liquid. Maybe it’ll work on your driveway… but I doubt it.

7

Kitty Litter works great. You don’t have to leave it on for a few days.

Get the cheapest brand you can find. Spread it over the spill and do “the twist” on it. You know, that old '50s dance. Get both feet going at the same time (like you’re putting out 2 cigarettes at once). For kicks you can also pretend you’re holding a towel and drying your butt. This breaks up the little chunks of clay that make up the kitty litter and forces them into the tiny pits in the surface of the concrete. When finished, the area that once was stained with oil will be cleaner than the surrounding areas.

We called it “dry sweep” in the Army. I used this method many times to clean up oil spills from tanks in the motor pool.

8

My dad used to make me “Holy Stone the Deck”.
He’d chicken feed some sand onto the concrete, and I’d get down there on my knees and abrade it away with a “Prayer Book”.
A “Prayer Book” is a small block of wood.
It was effective.
Dad was a Sergeant in the military, why do you ask?

9

Ah, you posted this just in time. My frippin’ frappin’ car left a huge oil slick where it was parked and a bunch of nano-slicks up and down the driveway.
Thank you for the timely thread!

10

I’ve been told (and have no personal experience to back this up) that most any oven cleaner can get the last bits of a stubborn oilstain off of a driveway or garage floor.

FWIW

11

Powdered Tide laundry detergent and Coca Cola.

Sprinkle on the Tide, pour on the Coke and scrub with a broom or brush. I’ve used it twice and it worked very well. Once on a garage floor in a rental that had so much gummy old motor oil on it that it made the garage unusable (unless you like stuff like that on your shoes and tracked into the house) and once on the basement floor of our first house…the fuel oil tank in the basement had slow dripped for years, resulting in a spot of sludge about 4 feet in diameter.

When you pour the Coke on the Tide it makes it foam like crazy. I don’t know why for sure, but I’m sure it’s an acid/alkaline reaction like what you get with vinegar and baking soda. But with Coke and Tide you also have surfactants for degreasing and carbonation for extra bubbling.

12

After using kitty litter, cover the stain with a paste of water and washing soda (available in the laundry aisle). This stuff is all natural, cheap, and amazing at getting out grease, fat and oil stains.

13

At the auto store they make a degreaser in a can. That should work too.

14

Well, I did the Deej thing, since I already had the stuff on hand. Worked pretty good, fizzed way so cool, but didn’t quite get it all. (I used a hard bristle push broom to scrub.) It’s almost gone, though.

These stains must be old.

So, I’m gonna do the Dance of the Kitty Litter Muerte like 1kBR Kid did in the Army. I already used kitty litter but I didn’t dance, just swept away the toppermost stuff apparantly. (So, can Baptists do this? :smiley: )

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I’m gonna print this out and save it.

15

The kitty litter twist has always worked wonders for me on fresh stains. I do it exactly as 1kBR Kid says. It is actually better to get the cheaper liter as it doesn’t contain a bunch of extra chemicals that keep the clay from absorbing the oil. I put on cowboy boots and twist on my heels putting all the force on a tiny area. For bonus points with the neighbors do this with cut-off shorts and a cowboy hat, also have some cheap beer in your hand.

It has been only semi-successful on really old oil stains.

16
      • To clean oil off concrete: pour some gasoline on the oil spot, let it stand for about 30 seconds, then cover it with plain cat litter, then sweep up the cat litter and dispose. Every time you do this, you’ll remove 80-90% of the oil stain with no effort. If you look on the ground at the gas station, you’ll see clean spots in the oil stains at the gas pumps. The clean spots are where customers spilled gasoline on the ground.
  • There is no soap that works anywhere near as well as gasoline does for this. Most soaps end up being a lot more expensive, too.
  • There is no way to clean soaked-in oil from asphalt. You just have to keep clean cat litter on it as much as possible, especially during real hot days when the oil seeps out faster.
    ~
17

If you can afford it & have to do a large area, a steam cleaner is by far the best. But here they charge $40 min.