Remove driveway oil stains in 30 minutes using one household item that’s ‘ultra-absorbent’
Oil stains on your driveway can be an eyesore and leaks and spills can happen to anyone, especially with car owners. However, removing the stains may not be as tricky as you first thought.
Driveways and patios will likely get stained at some point throughout its lifecycle no matter how hard you try to avoid them.
With so much oil sloshing about, it practically comes with the territory. For some homeowners, this isn’t a big issue, but for the neat freaks amongst us, it’s likely to cause stress.
So why does oil leave such tough stains on driveways? Well, it boils down to oil repelling water so the stains won't be lifted away with normal cleaning with water.
While there is a range of specialist driveway cleaning products on the market, they can be pricey and may not always do the job.
To banish it, paving experts at Terraform Driveways have shared their “go-to” household item they recommend using.
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They claimed that baking soda is a “go-to for getting rid of oil stains” for removing oil from a concrete surface and patios.
Baking soda works to remove oil because it has “ultra-absorbent” properties. It is more effective for oil leaks that are still wet.
The first thing that you need to do is create a paste of baking soda and warm water and apply it to the oil stain.
Leave it for 30 minutes or let it sit overnight if it is a particularly large stain, then use a stiff brush and give it a scrub.
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Household may need to put in some elbow grease to remove the stains from your driveway but if you do catch it soon enough and it's a fresh stain, it shouldn't be too difficult. Finally, rinse with clean water.
Alternatively, there is another household item to use on driveway oil stains - laundry detergent.
The experts explained that laundry detergent is a good option for removing oil stains because it “contains surfactants and often a mild alkali”.
These are molecules that “increase the ability of water and other substances to mix” which makes it effective at “dissolving dirt as well as oil”.
If you are using powdered laundry detergent, you should mix it with warm water to create a paste which you can then apply to the oil stain. Leave it to sit for 30 minutes and then scrub it with a stiff wire or nylon brush to remove any remaining residue.
If you are using a liquid laundry detergent, you can directly pour the solution onto the stain and then go through the same scrubbing process with a bristle brush.
Finally, you should rinse the excess oil and laundry detergent with a hose. Once it’s dry, you'll be able to see if there is any oil residue left and whether you need to treat the oil stain again.
