Removing stuff from a concrete floor

[Jon_E]

At my place of work, we have a small garage that housed a tractor-backhoe for years. It is an uninsulated and unheated space. We just sold the machine and now we are looking to store other equipment in there. The floor, however, is covered in tractor "fluids" - not sure what, exactly, but it could be oil, hydraulic fluid, diesel fuel, etc. Basically anything. I am looking for a way to clean this up and try to extract some portion of this out of the concrete. Hopefully we can get this cleaned up enough to be able to put epoxy down.

 

[JVarhol]

Have you tried using a degreaser and a pressure washer?

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[Falcon67]

I would look through the Floor section as there should be several comments on similar deals. However, I'm thinking you are not going to get epoxy to stick no matter how much you clean it because it'll never be "clean".

This is what I used, even on my new floor, because it was designed to pretty much stick to anything reasonably prepped.

http://kellymoore.com/docs/default-...y-technical-data-sheets/KM15-TDS.pdf?sfvrsn=0

 

[1MtnGoat]

Try pouring some Coke on it, agitate the Coke after 30 sec or so let it fizz a bit more and hose it off with water. I've cleaned some small stains with this. Makes the floor look like new. Thick grease buildup may need to be scraped. It's cheap give it a try.

 

[Cyberbear]

A hot pressure wash followed by absorbent material and cleaning solvent. Maybe something with an old fashioned lye base to pull out the oils and other petro-chemicals.
Good luck...

 

[matt_i]

I think it will be tough. But to start there's always the time honored tradition of grinding up oil-dri with the heel of your boot, and sweeping it up over and over. Sawdust also seems to have a very high affinity for oil.

It seems like some sort of solvent (personally I'd try the "orange" degreaser - CRC natural degreaser) and soak the concrete with that for awhile and then keep trying to absorb it.

I'm sure there are other chemical agents which accelerate this process. The epoxy sales guys have probably seen it all.

 

[CGT80]

industrial alkaline cleaner mixed specifically for this type of work, 3500+ psi, 5 gpm, 200+ degree pressure washer, hooked to a surfacing machine. The worst floor I cleaned as a pro was an engine shop where they had a mess from tearing down engines and the concrete was very old. I don't recall if they were going to epoxy that floor.

On other jobs we did, we would clean, and then they would grind the floor. They could really see what they had to work with after we left and we got rid of all the goo. The very hot water is a big key to cleaning, but the soap also makes a big difference and the surfacer puts nozzles only a couple inches from the concrete and not only has a ton of force to clean, but does it in an efficient way that makes it much faster than using a wand.

Do you really need epoxy? Maybe just a clean floor would be good or some sort of sealer, but I agree that it may never be clean depending on how far down the oils soaked into the concrete.

 

[Stuart in MN]

At my place of work, we have a small garage that housed a tractor-backhoe for years.

Try pouring some Coke on it, agitate the Coke after 30 sec or so let it fizz a bit more and hose it off with water.

I suspect 30 seconds of Coke is not going to make much of a dent in years of tractor drippings.

 

[crewchief888]

soak the floor in mineral spirits, dont be "stingy" with it, scrub with a still shop broom, cover it COMPLETLY with oil dry, (again, dont be stingy) and let it dry.

sweep up the oil dry, it will probably be clean enough to reuse.

 

[bmxdukie]

At the stage of final clean.. use portland cement. The dust will pull the last of the oil up.