Gear Oil Spill help

[aaluck]

Okay. I purchased a couple of gallons of 80/90 gear oil and thought I would also get a pump for the gallon jugs. Pumped a empty quart container full to use outside and..

...long story short the next day when I come home my garage floor was covered in the oil. Apparently the "pump" worked like a syphon. Now my garage (actually my workshop/TV room) smells like oil.

I have used cat litter which soaked most of it up but I cannot get rid of the smell. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[BigG]

Simple Green is a great way to remove the odor.

Do not use brake cleaner type of solvents as it does not clean but allows the oil to go deeper into the concrete.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Purple cleaner is my go to!

ZEP purple cleaner that you can get at home depot is excellent!

 

[BruceP]

I would start by spreading a layer of KITTY LITTER (clay type) and use a broom to move it around every couple days to allow a fresh 'edge' against the concrete.

After the kitty litter has done as much as it can, there are some commercially available powders which can be sprinkled on the concrete. (Folks who fix oil-furnaces carry the stuff)

I have been AMAZED that the powder-stuff can even 'suck' oil stains out of a wooden porch. It also contains a deodorizer.

It goes without saying that anything you use to absorb the oil should be considered HAZARDOUS WASTE and disposed of accordingly.

 

[beex]

Murphy’s oil soap works for me


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[wgator]

Ain't used it myself, but maybe some microbe oil spill cleaner like AT THIS LINK.

 

[Pau7220]

Get as much of the oil out of the concrete as possible. Use the backside of the pushbroom to grind the kitty litter in. You can wet a cotton rag with brakleen to get as much of the petroleum off the surface as possible. Soak and scrub with purple cleaner and hot water.

Follow up with this... https://odoban.com

The stuff does work. It took the smell out of my neighbor's hearse. You can leave it up to your imagination as to what dripped in the back. (You can't make this stuff up.......)

When you're squeaky clean and dry (it's gonna take time), you can use concrete sealer to lock it in. Sulfur smell may be gone by that point.

 

[lugbolt]

Mortar mix or sack crete, but I like mortar better (no rocks). Cheap and it works great....must be from a sealed container though as it will suck up moisture, which reduces it's ability to soak up any oil/moisture from the floor. Put it down, spread it around by loosely/lightly shuffling your feet around, it works it into the concrete, let it sit a while, sweep it up and your concrete will look brand new again and smells like, well, fresh concrete.

Second option: Stuff called "grab-a-spill". Best oil dry I ever used or seen.

Gear oil has sulphur in it, and the sulphur compound is what you are smelling. Real hard to get it all out; particularly for a sensitive nose such as mine. You may find that after soaking up as much as you can from the concrete, that an ionizer (ozone machine) may neutralize it. Sometimes you can rent them. I just bought one, ebay, $60 on the used market. Seems to work ok.

 

[GeoHorn]

Won’t work in your garage, of course.... but I’ve had some pretty bad spills over the year on concrete and the BEST way (for my purposes of getting completely rid of stains and odor) ...has been to splash gasoline on it and immediately scrub the gasoline INTO the oil with a push-broom working the broom back-and-forth... THEN pouring liquid laundry detergent into the still-wet gasoline/oil and scrubbing again... THEN washing it all away with a garden hose.

Works every time.

(The liquid detergent neutralizes the gas/oil and acts as a surfactant. If you must not allow it into the yard or street, then use sawdust/kitty-litter, etc to collect it and use it for weed-killer.)