What Are The Best Ways To Clean Oil From A Garage Floor?

Concrete is one of the most popular options for garage floors. It looks great and durable, but it still requires a particular process for floor cleaning. 

As a professional Garage Floor Cleaning Company, Enviro-Clean & Capture are well experienced in the best ways to clean your concrete garage floor to ensure its longevity and aesthetic prowess. The garage is one area that is particularly susceptible to oil, grime and dirt that can stain and build up over time. 

So while it can take some time for concrete to appear visibly unclean, regular cleaning to ensure it is free from damage is quite important.

In this article, we will look at the cleaning products required, the DIY clean process and why a professional clean is also necessary from time to time to ensure the best care for your concrete garage. 

A professional pressure cleaning service is required to bring your concrete garage as close as possible to its original condition, ensuring you push back the date of a costly replacement as much as possible. So take care of your investment, and enjoy the stunning look of clean concrete all year round.

FAQs About The Best Ways To Clean Oil From A Garage Floor

How Do I Get Oil Off My Garage Floor?

First, cover the oil stain in clay cat litter, letting it sit for several hours (or overnight if it’s a heavy stain.) 

Then sweep up the cat litter and pour liquid dish soap over the stain to break up the grease. Let it soak up for at least an hour, then use a wire scrub brush and clean the stain in a circular motion.

What Is The Best Degreaser For Garage Floors?

Another cleaning agent widely believed to be the best way to clean a garage floor is trisodium phosphate (TSP). It is strongly alkaline, so it will not harm the concrete floor, which could cause skin irritation and even burns. Unfortunately, TSP is also very bad for the environment.

Does Vinegar Remove Oil Stains From Concrete?

Stubborn oil stains may need to be washed twice to remove fully. While there are commercial products available for cleaning up oil on cement, you can use home remedies, including vinegar, a natural degreaser.

How Do You Remove Deep Oil Stains From Concrete?

• Remove excess oil – Wipe up oil with a rag or use kitty litre to absorb it.
• Scrub with a paste – Use baking soda or powdered laundry detergent and water to dissolve the oil stain. Rinse with water.
• Wash with soap – Dish soap and a scrub brush are often effective on new oil spots.

How Do You Clean An Unsealed Concrete Garage Floor?

Dish soap, 1 cup white vinegar and 1-gallon warm water in a bucket. Recipe #2 – Make a solution of 1 part all-purpose cleaner, two parts warm water and four parts ammonia. Recipe #3 – Mix 1/3 cup Tide to 1 gallon of warm water. Any of these should work well for cleaning unsealed cement garage floors.

The Best Garage Cleaning Products

When it comes to your base-level DIY spot clean, all you will need is a dry granular cleaner, of which there are many options available. 

If, however, you are dealing with some particularly tough stains, it may take something a little more robust. The type of stain is the most significant factor when choosing your cleaner and your method. The following options are your best bet:

Removing Oil Stains

One of the most common situations you’ll have to deal with on a garage floor is oil stains. Your best here is bleach, in a spray bottle, sprayed onto the stain and allowed to sit for 20 minutes. 

After this, take a scrub brush to the stain, then give it a rinse with plain water. Although, if required, you may have to repeat this process, particularly tough stains, ensure you exercise caution when using the bleach. 

It mustn’t contact your eyes or skin, and we recommend wearing old clothes.

Removing Tyre Marks

Tyre marks will require a degreaser, and we often recommend an orange citrus concentrate. This is safe for both you and any pets or children that may be around. Leave the degreaser on the marks for a few hours, then scrub with a brush or broom. 

Please give it a rinse with water and the marks should be no more. If they are, repeat the process. We recommend that you steer clear of muriatic acid as your cleaning option. This hazardous chemical is highly reactive and best left to professionals.

Removing Grease Stains

Another common issue will be the grease stain. For this, we recommend either dry concrete or kitty litter. Spread your chosen option over the stain and allow it to sit for three days. Then, sweep or vacuum it up, and it should have soaked up the grease. 

An important note to remember for those who opt for the dry cement option is not to dispose of it in the sink or toilet. The plumbing issues this will cause will be very costly indeed.

How To Clean Transmission Fluid From Your Garage Floor?

Transmission fluid can be a little harder to remove. The beginning of the process is the same as how we deal with grease stains (mentioned above), requiring the dry cement or kitty litter spread out over the stain, given time to soak it up.

From here, you will follow these steps:

• Mix two cups of dish detergent with hot water and pour over the fluid stains
• Scrub with a stiff nylon-bristle brush
• Rinse with clean water
• Scrub once again with hot soapy water and rinse until the stain is gone

If you are dealing with an older transmission fluid stain, you can start with a small amount of paint thinner poured over the stain and allowed to soak for 15 to 20 minutes. 

After this, scrub the area with a nylon-bristle sponge, then use paper towels to soak up all the liquid. From here, you can give a final clean with the dishwashing liquid and water mix to finish it off.

Speak To A Professional Garage Floor Cleaning Company

Take care of your concrete. This expensive investment can truly increase the aesthetic and value of your home if it is well cared for and should last you for many, many years. The experts at Enviro-Clean and Capture offer a well-trained team with extensive knowledge and experience with all kinds of concrete cleaning and sealing. 

Why Should You Hire A Professional Cleaning Service?

Pressure cleaning is an excellent way to make the exterior of your home look sparkling clean and look brand new. But, if you clean incorrectly, it can cause damage to your concrete floors. Therefore, it’s recommended to use a professional pressure cleaning service instead of attempting to do it yourself. Let’s take a look at some reasons why.

Experience And Training

A professional pressure cleaning service has extensive experience with cleaning concrete floors. Cleaners have undergone training with equipment and know the right settings and temperatures to use.

Industry Standard Equipment

Professional cleaners don’t use unmaintained budget equipment from a local hardware store. Instead, they use a top of the line cleaning rig, which is suited for commercial use. All tools are also regularly serviced to ensure they operate at their peak performance and deliver the best results.

Correct Cleaning Solutions

Not every type of cleaning requires soap and water. However, if you use it on the wrong kind of surface, it can leave a residue that looks gross and is difficult to remove. Professional cleaners know which surfaces to use soap and water and avoid.

Using A Garage Floor Cleaning Company

The deep clean required to ensure that your flooring is taken care of is best handled by a professional garage floor cleaning company like Enviro Clean & Capture. This task is pointless if not performed properly, and you also run the risk of damaging your concrete if it is done incorrectly or with the wrong tools and materials. Another important factor to consider, and most certainly to consider when calculating the cost of the task, is the time it takes to complete the job. Few people want to spend hours after work or over the weekend cleaning.

Time is a valuable commodity, and if you can save it while ensuring the correct process is used to obtain a detailed result from a professional pressure cleaning service, why wouldn’t you? The benefits of a professional garage floor cleaning company like Enviro Clean & Capture are as follows:

The Advantage Of The Experience

A company like ours features a team with years of extensive experience and training, ensuring the right process, settings, temperatures, equipment and materials while completely avoiding damage to your property.

Access To Industry Equipment

While some people opt to hire equipment from the local hardware store, they do not realise that it isn’t always maintained. It has been used by countless other DIY cleaners before them, often incorrectly, and all of this takes a toll on the machinery and its performance. An unserviced pressure cleaner can be dangerous and useless. A professional garage floor cleaning company like Enviro Clean & Capture uses top of the line cleaning equipment often designed for commercial use, meaning it is more than capable of a residential task. In addition, all equipment is regularly serviced, guaranteeing peak performance and the best results every time.

Using The Right Cleaning Solutions

Suppose your concrete garage requires a little more than soap and water. In that case, a professional garage floor cleaning company like Enviro Clean & Capture will have access to the right cleaning materials to make sure it is cleaned correctly. Our industrial strength cleaning materials cannot be purchased at the supermarket and are both safe and

effective.

Scrubbing The Garage Floor Clean

The first thing you want to do for the best success is remove everything from the garage floor that is not anchored down and sweep out the heavy dirt and debris. As obvious as this seems, some people don’t want to do this, and they are the ones who always end up ruining something due to water damage.

• If you have painted drywall in your garage or low electrical outlets, you may want to cover the lower 3ft by taping a few cheap plastic drop cloths to the walls to avoid water spots or shorts from electrical damage.
• The easiest, low-budget method for cleaning the garage floor is to use a concentrated concrete degreaser, a deck brush, your garden hose with a high-pressure nozzle, and some good old-fashioned elbow grease. If you don’t have a degreaser, Tide laundry detergent or TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) are excellent substitutes for cleaning concrete.
• Mix the cleaning agent of choice into a large warm to the hot water bucket. For Tide, we like to use a ratio of 1/3 cup of Tide to 1 gallon of water. Follow the recommended directions for the TSP or degreaser. It is easiest if you divide your floor into sections as you clean.
• Pour your warm soapy solution onto a section and start scrubbing with your deck brush. For particularly dirty floors, it helps to let the solution sit for a few minutes after your initial scrubbing to work on the dirt and grime. After setting for 5 – 10 minutes, add a little more solution and scrub again. Follow that up with a good rinsing with your high-pressure nozzle, and then move on to the next section.

It’s important to make sure that the solution you are scrubbing with does not start to dry up before you rinse it away. The reason for this is that the contaminants in the pores of the concrete are emulsified and lifted out in the solution while it is still wet. This makes it easy to rinse out with the high-pressure nozzle. However, if it starts to dry out, these contaminants can be left behind with the rinsing. Once the floor dries, you should have a nice clean surface and inspect for any tough areas that need to be spots cleaned, such as grease and oil stains.

Equipment For Cleaning A Garage Floor

Cleaning the garage floor with pressure washer concrete is porous and can become embedded with dirt and grime over the years if it hasn’t been cleaned very often or at all. However, if you are dealing with a floor such as this, you have some equipment options that can make the job easier and work great at getting the dirtiest of garage floors clean.

• The first of these is a pressure washer. Pressure washers can save a lot of time in scrubbing and are excellent at cleaning concrete. Most will allow you to add a degreaser to the water for additional cleaning action. You can read more about pressure washers for garage floors here.
• They are not very expensive to rent, and you can usually find them at your local home improvement or equipment rental centres. For effective cleaning, a minimum 3000 PSI washer should be used with a water flow rate of 3 gallons per minute or more.
• The key to using a pressure washer is to presoak the concrete with the cleaning solution first for 10 – 15 minutes. Work in sections, as stated above. Once the area has soaked, add more water to the floor and use the pressure washer to start rinsing the grime away.
• The yellow 15-degree fan tips work best for dirty concrete. You can use the more powerful turbo tip for particularly stubborn areas such as stains. Just be careful not to linger too long in one area when using a good pressure washer and keep the tip moving. Because the water action is so abrasive, you can etch the surface of the concrete if you are not careful.
• The second equipment option you can use is a floor buffer (also known as floor maintainers) with a nylon scrubbing head for concrete. You can rent these inexpensively as well. Be sure to tell the rental company that you will need to clean concrete. Home Depot is a great resource for these.

Garage cleaning brush for floor maintainer. When using a floor buffer, you will clean the concrete in the same manner as using a deck brush. Just substitute the floor buffer for the deck brush. Take your time as you go and let the buffing machine do its work. You may have to add a little water as you scrub to keep the solution wet and foamy. These can do wonders to some concrete, with the floors turning many shades lighter after scrubbing with a floor buffer.

Conclusion

Learning the best way to clean a garage floor properly is a skill that is high on most home improvement lists. It is a critical aspect for any project that involves prepping a floor for paint, an epoxy coating, or just creating a nice clean garage floor free of spills, stains, and contaminants. 

Depending upon what type of garage floor project you have chosen and how dirty your floor is, there are different methods of cleaning a concrete floor that you may want to engage. We will discuss each of them to ensure a successful outcome. If your goal is to eliminate pet urine odour and stains, we have a separate article.

Cleaning your garage floor is one task that rarely makes it on your list of to-dos. However, serious clutter and grime can build up without regular cleaning and maintenance, leaving the garage in poor condition. Removing dirt, chemicals, and unwanted stains will keep your garage floor from wearing away and safe for you and your family.

How much does it cost to epoxy garage floor?

Epoxy garage floors cost between $1,447 to $3,006, with the national average at $2,227. If you’re tired of the plain concrete flooring in your garage, you may be interested in long-lasting epoxy flooring. Epoxy is a rugged and durable finish that will transform dull garage flooring into a gleaming surface.

Is it worth it to epoxy garage floor?

Epoxy flooring protects the underlying concrete from moisture, stains, grease and cracks. In the long run, this can save you a great deal on cleaning and maintenance costs by eliminating the need to clean carpet or grout. It’s also very reasonably priced for the duration and level of protection that it offers.

Why you should not epoxy your garage floor?

Steer Clear of Epoxy on Your Garage Flooring

• #1: Epoxy has Weak Adhesion. Compared to paint, epoxy has far stronger adhesion. …
• #2: Epoxy Takes Multiple Days to Fully Cure. …
• #3: Epoxy Fades. …
• #4: It Can Stick to the Wrong Places! …
• #5: Poor Flexibility. …
• #6: Cooler Temp Applications Are Tough.