How to Clean Up Oil Spills and Stains in The Garage in 3 Steps?
It’s inevitable. No matter how often you have your car inspected, an oil spill happens in the parking and the garage. You can clean up the oil spill relatively quickly. A piece of cloth or a bunch of paper towels will absorb excess oil but dealing with oil stains left on the group requires more effort. Sometimes, cleaning the floor and wiping the stain off requires certain cleaning solutions and tricks you may not know.
In this article, we’ll explore an easy 3-step method to clean oil spills and oil stains in the garage or parking.
Who Should Read This Guide?
This guide helps anyone with a car and a place to park the car. Therefore, most people who have a garage or a private parking spot can use this guide to deal with nasty oil stains. Also, this easy 3-step guide helps building concierge and car park owners clean up oil stains without any hassle.
Dangers of Oil Spill in The Garage
Oil spills have several dangers if not cleaned properly. First, oil spills pose a hazard to health. The chemicals in engine oils can cause rashes, dermatitis and headaches, and prolonged exposure may cause blood anaemia and skin cancer.
The fume and vapour emitted from oil spills and stains may also cause respiratory illnesses. Therefore, it’s a threat to adults and extremely dangerous for kids who play around with oil spills. They may also touch the spills and, out of curiosity, taste it.
Also, untreated oil spills may cause injuries. Surfaces with motor oil spills become slippery. Therefore, the risk of physical injuries increases as a result of slips, trips and falls.
And last, motor oils are combustible. Therefore, they may cause fire when the conditions are right. While the spill might be insignificant enough to cause a massive fire, anything around or above it (like the car parked on an oil spill) will catch fire quickly, leading to a major fire.
Read More: Basic Cleaning Tips Everyone Should Know
Cleaning Garage Oil Spills in 3 Steps
If you have some fresh or old oil spills and stains in your car park or garage, you can rely on this easy guide to get rid of them completely. First, prepare the cleaning supplies and equipment you need and simply follow the steps to remove the stain.
Things You Need
For the first step, you’ll need sawdust to absorb the spill. You can also use cat litter. If you don’t have any of them, crumble several paper towels or get commercially available oil-absorbers. For the best effect, we recommend sawdust or cat litter. You also need a broom and dustpan.
For the second step, you need the following to clean the oil stain:
- WD-40
- Warm water
- Dish soap or washup liquid
- Coca-cola (for its phosphorous content)
- Acetone or Lacquer thinner (for very persistent stains)
And for the last step, you need a wire brush and a steel wool to scrub the surface.
Also, using personal protective equipment like rubber gloves and safety glasses is recommended.
Step 1: Absorb The Spill
In the first step, you have to absorb the spill completely. This means absorbing any excess oil on the surface as well as the amount between the small crash and gaps on tarmac or concrete surfaces.
To do this, bury the spill with sawdust or cat litter. If you don’t have any one of them, crumble several paper towels, place them on the spill and put something heavy on top to maximise the absorption.
Leave them for 24 to 48 hours. During this time, sweep up the debris with a broom and dustpan and replace them with fresh ones every few hours. If you’re using paper towels, you have to do this more often.
If it’s windy outside, either leave the cleaning for later when the weather is calm or place a big bucket on top and secure it with a heavy item to protect the debris from flying away with the wind.
Step 2: Clean The Oil Stain
Usually, after absorbing the spill, the stains go away too. However, in not, you can spray WD-40 and leave it for an hour to saturate the stain. You can also pour a can of Coca-Cola on the stain and leave it for half an hour to one hour before scrubbing. The phosphorous content in Coca-Cola can help you remove the stains.
Read More: How to Clean Any Carpet Stains?
Step 3: Scrub it Clean
Use a firm wire brush or firm steel wool to scrub the stain as you pour dush soup with warm water slowly. Do this several times to completely clean the motor oil stain. This step might be tiresome as you have to scrub hard and consistently. Keep the scrubbing motion in a circular pattern to maximise the effect.
For more stubborn stains, you can use acetone or thinner mixed with sawdust to absorb the spill and then use them to scrub the stain clean. However, first use conventional cleaning supplies a few times and allow a few hours for the surface to dry.
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Didn’t Work? Hire Professional Help!
In most cases, cleaning small oil spills by yourself is the right thing to do. The manual labour part of it might be difficult but you can save money by not asking others to do it. However, for large car parks or commercial garages, it’s not a viable way as it is time-consuming.
In this case, it is better to hire floor scrubbing professionals to do the job for you. They use specialised cleaning chemicals and heavy-duty machinery to clean large and stubborn oil stains with relative ease.
How to Prevent Oil Spills?
To make sure oil spills don’t happen again in your now-cleaned garage, it is recommended to have your car inspected by a professional mechanic. This not only prevents oil spills but also helps you identify problems in your car early and fix them before they cause more damage.
Changing motor oil and oil filters can prevent many issues that cause oil leaks in cars. Inspecting the car’s oil pan regularly and changing worn-out rubber gaskets or preparing punctured or damaged pans can also prevent oil spills in your garage.
We recommend fixing the car and leaking issues before attempting to clean the garage.
Conclusion
Oil spills and cars that are leaking oil are inevitable for garages and car parks. If left uncleaned, oil spills are not only a health hazard but also may cause physical injuries due to slips, trips and falls. Cleaning oil spills is easy, but cleaning the oil stain needs more effort and time. In this article, we discussed the best method to clean oil spills and oil stains in garages or car parks. This easy 3-step guide can help you clean any old or new oil stains using relatively cheap and easy-to-find materials and equipment.
The information in this article can help any individual dealing with oil spills and oil stains in their garage or parking slots. It also helps large car park owners or building caretakers to clean motor oil spills and stains or get professional help if they fail to do so.
