Remove Oils Stains From Concrete

I'm sure a lot of us are familiar with oil stains on a concrete driveway, either someone parks their clunker there and it leaks, or your teenage son changes the oil his Mum's car and spills the old oil everywhere...

I'd tried pressure washing it, scrubbing it and washing with various cleaning products. None of it worked until I tried oven cleaner.

A little weird, but it worked well enough that I thought I'd share it with others.

1. Oven Cleaner
2. Rubber Gloves
3. Tin Snips
4. Garden hose or bucket of water

I don't currently have any oil stains left on my concrete driveway, because I already used this method to remove them. But I've got a concrete tile that I've flipped upside down and poured a generous amount of waste engine oil over it, then rubbed it in.

I left it to soak in overnight as well, so it's a reasonably good example.

You need to remove the air from the can of oven cleaner so you can safely cut it open to get to the concentrated chemical goodness inside (wear gloves when you open it up, it will burn your skin).

The safest and easiest way to vent the air without wasting the cleaner is to remove the nozzle, tip the can upside down and press it against the concrete until the can runs out of pressure. There's usually a little bit of cleaner that comes out, so you may as well do this on the stain you want to remove.

You can then use a pair of tin snips to cut the can open, be careful not to spill any!

Pour a thick layer of oven cleaner over the stain. Optionally, you can also give it a quick scrub to really rub in the cleaner. If you do give it a scrub pour on another layer as you want a decent amount to sit on the stain and work it's magic.

Most oven cleaners take several hours to really remove the oil, so let it sit for most of the day. It works best on a cloudy day so the sun doesnt dry it out, if its a hot day you could try cover it with a tarp or something similar.

Rinse off the concrete with water; a garden hose is all you need, or a bucket of water.

Once the concrete dries, it should be stain-free. If there's still some oil left, give it another treatment, but one is normally enough.