Removing Oil stains on asphalt driveway

[Hay Dude]

Had the misfortune of blowing a transmission oil return line down onto a customers driveway. Immediately Did the usual dose of kitty litter/absorbent.
This is no puddle. It’s a 100-150 foot long puddle.
Kitty litter did a decent job on what oil was laying on the surface, but now I still have the stain. I have been given a few different suggestions on remediation.

1. Wait until it dries and seal driveway. Issue with that is the driveway is 1000’ long. Might look odd to seal only 100-150’ of it. Whole driveway would be very expensive

2. Power-wash driveway with a Dawn & water mixture. Still pondering this solution.

Anyone else had luck with a very large stain like this?

 

[4570Man]

Power washing with dawn is better than nothing but I’ve tried that before and the stain is still pretty visible after doing that. It’s probably still where I would start and see what is needed after that.

 

[dodge man]

Sealing it would be your best bet, I doubt you will get the stain out any other way.

 

[Pixguy]

I use a product called Pull it Out on oil or hydraulic stains on my blacktop but that is a huge area to paint this stuff on.

 

[MossRoad]

Try a test spot with Simple Green. Can't hurt.

 

[Mtsoxfan]

I've tried Simple Green, Dawn, Oxy Clean. Nothing worked. And I was only trying to lift up oil spots, feeling for ya...

 

[Eagle1]

Oil the whole thing to match. Works on chip and seal pavement. Might want to use a cheaper oil

 

[Hay Dude]

I heard fresh oil stains much easier than established stains

 

[paulsharvey]

Issue is the oil attacks the Asphaltic Cement in the asphalt, ie the binder. You might try a weed burner to burn off the spill; but diesel, and hydralic fluid are he'll on asphalt. The picture is from a fuel spill, about 40-80 gallons on a roadway, and I could easily stick a screw driver through the asphalt, down to the base rock, with maybe 20 lbs of force. The whole affected area is gonna have to be milled out and repaved.

 

[Williy]

Have you tried GOO GONE? suppose to remove stains etc.
Wife used this product so can't say anything about it but she
said it works!

I used BASIC H I know this works but its expensive! When I
changed oil in our car and truck I put the pan of use oil in our
front yard and got the hose and a quart of basic H slowly poured
the basic H in the pan and sprayed it with water when the oil disappeared
you could run your hand over the ground where I just emptied the
drain o;il and you hand would be clean as you could not get any
oil on your hand as the basic H dissolved it

willy

 

[paulsharvey]

Goo Gone is a orange oil based product, that is basically the same as the non petroleum sprays used to keep asphalt from sticking to a dump truck bed, or to clean tools where diesel isn't allowed. It's not nearly as aggressive, but I would only try a very small area with it to make sure it doesn't make things worse

 

[Streetcar]

As Paul Harvey said transmission fluid is solvent for asphalt. What you are seeing is structural damage to asphalt. Try dawn to minimize damage by removing asa much of spill as possible. I would hand scrub and not use pressure washer

 

[Hay Dude]

Issue is the oil attacks the Asphaltic Cement in the asphalt, ie the binder. You might try a weed burner to burn off the spill; but diesel, and hydralic fluid are he'll on asphalt. The picture is from a fuel spill, about 40-80 gallons on a roadway, and I could easily stick a screw driver through the asphalt, down to the base rock, with maybe 20 lbs of force. The whole affected area is gonna have to be milled out and repaved.
View attachment 835490

Yeah, no that’s not going to need to happen in my case. We are cleaning it up as best we can and not doing any milling or repaving, but thanks for the fear tactics.

 

[Hay Dude]

As Paul Harvey said transmission fluid is solvent for asphalt. What you are seeing is structural damage to asphalt. Try dawn to minimize damage by removing asa much of spill as possible. I would hand scrub and not use pressure washer

I‘m not seeing any “structural damage” to the asphalt, but thanks for the laughs.
It’s a mild stain, but it’s about 100’ long and I need to clean it up best possible.

I am using kitty litter and hand scrubbing with Dawn and a scrub brush on a wooden pole.

 

[paulsharvey]

Yeah, no that’s not going to need to happen in my case. We are cleaning it up as best we can and not doing any milling or repaving, but thanks for the fear tactics.

I wasn't trying to say that in your case; but kinda just had the picture from work recently, and yep, that's really the only way to actually deal with petroleum damaged asphalt. Through the years, had many fuel spills (normally less than 120 gallons; although one was 6500 gallons of gas); hydralic, car fires, ect damage asphalt. A big depending factor, is how long it sits on asphalt, and how old the asphalt is (it appears old crappy asphalt with almost no AC content left, doesn't get attacked as bad), and of coarse the aggressiveness of the spill.

When I was much newer in construction, I ran over a 5 gal can of oil based Kilz paint on a brand new parking lot. Talk to painter; he says, odorless mineral spirits won't hurt anything, its about the mildest solvent know.... Every single time we broomed that area before we turned it over to owner, we never stopped brooming out aggregate.... think asphalt dollar general parking lot, ever notice the loose rock at the front 1/3 of the parking spots, oil leaks have broken down the asphalt.

 

[Cincy]

Hay dude
The structural damage is that the transmission fluid is stripping the asphaltic cement from the aggregate. You can minimize damage by removing as much of the fluid as you can. I have been in asphalt industry for over twenty years

 

[Engineer42]

Had the misfortune of blowing a transmission oil return line down onto a customers driveway. Immediately Did the usual dose of kitty litter/absorbent.
This is no puddle. It’s a 100-150 foot long puddle.
Kitty litter did a decent job on what oil was laying on the surface, but now I still have the stain. I have been given a few different suggestions on remediation.

1. Wait until it dries and seal driveway. Issue with that is the driveway is 1000’ long. Might look odd to seal only 100-150’ of it. Whole driveway would be very expensive

2. Power-wash driveway with a Dawn & water mixture. Still pondering this solution.

Anyone else had luck with a very large stain like this?


View attachment 835440


View attachment 835441

Apply Tide, then rinse. Sooner the better. (Before someone asks, yes, the liquid, not the powder or the pods)

 

[Rockbadchild]

tell him sorry and it’s going to go away within a few years … he should understand it is not your fault, cleaning it for environmental damage i understand but you can’t loose your shirt fixing it and he has to understand that.

 

[number two]

The premium NAPA floor-dri 8822,the white-ish stuff cleans very well.
Apply,crush in if possible,let it sit and not get wet.
Sweep up.

Have insurance or afraid to use it?

Best of luck to you!

 

[ruffdog]

Same thing happened but with hydraulic oil in this thread:

hydraulic oil spill on asphalt driveway