Removing Oil stains on asphalt driveway

[Rototillerextraordinaire]

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?


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I highly recommend the bio-remediation products from ACT Cleaners www.actcleaners.com based in Colorado. Very simple to use and effective. They have a YouTube channel with instructional videos as well.

 

[ruffdog]

If it were my driveway, the stain would be the least of my worries as it should be unnoticeable after a year or two. I would be worried about the integrity of the asphalt itself and the long term affects of a petroleum product soaking into it. I sure wouldn't want more solvents thrown onto it as a questionable fix to the problem.

 

[plowhog]

How is it his fault that his truck had a mechanical failure ? .. on highways there is oil spills nearly everyday

He is a for-profit contractor with a responsibility to correct the private property he damaged.

At least that how I hope things still work!

 

[paulsharvey]

The asphalt must be heated to apply it, so why would heat damage it during an attempted repair?

Asphalt is typically around 300 to 325 degrees. If you go up drastically, you burn the asphalt cement (AC). That's why I made sure to say slow, even, heat. A propane flame is like 3600 degrees. If you hold that in one place, you will burn the AC out of the asphalt, and then there isn't anything holding the aggregate together. It's not going to happen instantly, but point is; don't over do it. If you stand there with the flame focused on a single area, for 10 minutes, yep, you'll have a problem.

The idea is, back to the fractural distillation column; oils/solvents/ect have a lower vapor point than asphaltic cement. It won't really reverse the breakdown of the AC binder, but it will somewhat blend it, and remove some of the volatile parts. It will also stop any additional tracking, or migration down deeper into the asphalt.

 

[Rockbadchild]

He is a for-profit contractor with a responsibility to correct the private property he damaged.

At least that how I hope things still work!

I can respect that but I would argue his property didn't get damaged and the owner accepted that risk by hiring a contractor. Although I did learn oil can damage asphalt which seem odd to me but that depend on multiple factors like if not cleaned up. But it was... If it would've been a corporate delivery vehicle I would strongly doubt they would offer any reparations.

 

[JLinOK]

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?


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I am not trying to be trite, but maybe you should have taken a roller and smoothed it out and charged for topcoating it. I think anything other than the kitty litter will damage the asphalt as well?

 

[jgmo]

You might try spot testing using WD-40 and then washing that off with detergent solution. Not sure that would work here but I've done that on upholstery before to clean oil stains and it worked great.

Good luck.

 

[Rctex]

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?


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View attachment 835441

I’ve used cement to absorb
Cover it let it set day r two
Sweep it up
Power wash
Guess u could take kerosene an roll it on
Thin

 

[slckeys]

I think I have used the kitty litter about as much as possible to soak up oil.
Now it’s time to look at a cleaning solution.

When you say “detergent”, are you talking Tide, Dawn, or ….what?

I used tide free and clear. But that's what I have on hand for when I used it on cement.

 

[paulsharvey]

Ok, there's a ton of Bad advice. If you want solid advice, call a asphalt contractor, and ask them. Being a residential driveway, and the relatively small amount of spill, the advice very well might be, Leave it alone. Then speak with homeowner, and then figure out how it needs to be handled. Maybe offer something like, if it doesn't blend in with 6 months, maybe you have to seal it. Other then Strickly appearance, there would be no reason to seal more then full width, just the length of any heavy spill.

Saw cut and patch, works fine, but it looks like hell, adds joints, doesn't ride very good, and adds an additional 2 points of future failure.

If this was a true road job, the answer would be simple. Mill and resurface, full width, the length of the damage, or a min 50 ft total. BUT, this isn't a true road project.