Oil stains: what we can and cannot do
Can an oil stain be removed from a concrete driveway? Unless the surface is very well sealed or a closed-pore tile, almost never completely, by us or by anyone. Posh Wash can often make it much lighter, priced as an add-on to a driveway clean across Brisbane's southside. Send a photo first: book online or call Luke on 0490 791 059.
Priced as an add-on to a driveway clean, not sold on its own.
Quick facts
- Service
- Oil stain treatment
- Price
- Priced as an add-on to a driveway clean, not sold on its own
- Typical time
- Depends on size and access; most jobs are done inside a day
- Areas
- Brisbane southside and western suburbs, including Sunnybank & Sunnybank Hills, Annerley, Mount Gravatt
- Book
- Book online or call 0490 791 059, 7 days
Why it happens
Oil does not sit on concrete. It sits in it.
Concrete, unsealed pavers and terracotta are porous: think of them as a very hard sponge. Dirt, moss and grime sit on the surface, which is why pressure cleaning works so well on them. Oil does the opposite. It soaks down into the pores, sometimes millimetres deep, and then it sets.
A pressure washer only cleans what it can reach. Once the oil is below the surface, blasting harder does not pull it back up. It just wears the concrete away around it, which can leave a lighter patch shaped exactly like the stain you were trying to hide.
Degreasers help, but only with the oil they can reach. Each application lifts a bit more of what is near the top, and each does less than the last. At some point you are paying for a result you can no longer see.
What decides the outcome
Six things that change what is possible
Sealed or not
A properly sealed driveway keeps oil on top of the sealer, and these clean up well. Unsealed concrete is where the disappointment lives.
How long it has been there
A fresh spill treated within a day or two is a very different job to a stain baking in the Brisbane sun for two years.
What the oil is
Cooking oil and light hydraulic fluid are easier. Engine oil, diff oil and bitumen bond hard and stay put.
Surface porosity
Closed-pore porcelain and glazed tile release oil. Exposed aggregate, broom-finish concrete and old pavers hold on to it.
How much soaked in
A few drips are surface level. A slow leak that ran for months has gone deep, and depth is the part we cannot reach.
What is around it
Lighten one patch on a driveway that has never been washed and the clean patch becomes the new eyesore. Usually the whole slab needs doing.
A realistic result
This is the kind of improvement to expect
Lighter, not gone. If a cleaner shows you a driveway that came up spotless, look closely: the concrete has usually been ground back, acid etched or resurfaced, not cleaned.
BeforeAfterIf you want us to try
What we actually do
We look at it first
Send a photo before you book. Nine times out of ten we can tell from the photo whether it is worth attempting, and we will say so.
Hot water and a dedicated degreaser
The degreaser dwells so it can break down what it can reach. Hot water does far more here than pressure does.
Agitation, then a surface clean
The stain is scrubbed rather than blasted, then the whole slab is surface cleaned so the finish is even edge to edge.
A second pass only if it is responding
If the first application made a visible difference, a second is usually worth it. If it did nothing, a second will do nothing either, and we stop rather than charge you for it.
Better uses of your money
What we would suggest instead
Clean the whole driveway. A uniformly clean slab makes a stain read as a mark rather than neglect. This is the single biggest visual improvement, and it is the one that works.
Seal it afterwards. A sealed driveway is the only reliable defence. The next spill sits on top of the sealer and wipes away, and the concrete stays looking washed for far longer.
Deal with fresh spills fast. Cat litter or sand on a fresh spill, left overnight to draw the oil up, then a degreaser, does more than anything we can do six months later.
If it truly has to go, it is a concreting job. Grinding, resurfacing or replacing the section is the only guaranteed fix. That is a job for a concreter, and we will happily say so rather than take a booking we cannot deliver on.
Can you get the stain out completely?
Almost certainly not, unless the surface is sealed or a closed-pore tile. Expect lighter. Anyone promising gone is either resurfacing the concrete or overselling.
Will a stronger pressure washer work better?
No. Above roughly 3000 psi on concrete you start cutting the surface. That removes the top layer of concrete along with some stain and leaves visible wand marks and a patch that never matches.
What about acid or a rust remover?
Acids etch concrete. They can lighten a stain by removing the surface it sits in, but they leave the area rougher, lighter and more absorbent than everything around it, so the next spill goes in deeper.
Do you charge if it does not work?
Oil treatment is priced as an add-on to the driveway clean, so you are paying for the clean driveway you are getting. We will not quote a standalone oil removal job we do not believe in.
My real estate agent says it has to be removed before I hand back the keys.
Send us a photo. We can give you something in writing about what is and is not achievable on that surface, which is usually more useful than another attempt at cleaning it.
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Send us a photo first. We will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing.
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