[AndyDS]

Advice needed please. Just had a call from a customer who had work carried out on her car. The garage messed up and some how her car has leaked and lot of diesel over her drive - 3 days ago on concrete, . The garage will cover the costs of cleaning.
Does anyone have experience on how to remove diesel? I will be looking at her driveway Thursday, and will know the full extent of the spill then. I do not have access to cleaning with heat.
Thank you for any help?
Andy

[BDCS]

Get absorbant granules on it asap even sawdust and cover it from rain.. What surface is it ?

[Smudger]

Concrete     


Granules are a good call, if you can't get purpose made ones cat litter will do in an emergency, however after a couple of days I'm not sure how much it's going to draw out.

When the experts come along I'm sure their will be talk of poultices etc etc.. But as a noob, I would use ot8, scrub that in then pw the area, repeat once more then if you have ghosting I'd scrub over with brick acid ( but only if the ot8 failed - which so far it never has ) but really depends on age and condition of surface

And if the garage are paying - don't be cheap!

Darran

[Roger Oakley]

After 3 days that will have soaked in so no point in using granules etc, try some Resiblock OR first then follow up with OT8 thus hitting the stain twice, the Resiblock needs to go on a dry surface, but the OT8 can go on damp surfaces.  Photos would be good to see how bad this is? Heat will also help if you have access to a hot P/W?
You could all ways try a hot caustic mix (Sodium Hydroxide) to bring the diesel to the surface, but use with extreme care. Poultice as a last resort.

[AndyDS]

Thank you for all your advice.
I have been to the property which has a small one car drive. Not in great condition. The customer was just a bit annoyed that her car was not fixed properly, so made a big issue out of it. Having said that, the diesel can be walked into the house as sand was used after the spill. I was told that the look of the drive is not that important - it just needs to be clean and useable again. I plan to use OT8 over the area, 6 sq/m. Then give it a good clean.
Kind regards
Andy

[Clever Forum Name]

If its just diesel then i would just burn it off with a blow torch?

We cleaned some block paving last year and removed black oil stains. Customer called back later on and said there is more stains than before.

Turns out van diesel tank had been brimmed and it leaks (common on transits with non modified tank restraining) and the van was parked on the drive outside where we wasn't to clean!!! It rained for a two days after the call.

Turned up and it was clean/slightly dirty diesel. We had a portable blow torch and decided to try burning it off.

No damage done and you couldn't tell where it had been done.

I would try burning then absorption.

Edit - Just seen its concrete, may be too late then