How to Remove Fuel and Oil Odors from Concrete, Ceramic Tile, and Grout

Concrete, cement, tile and grout that has been contaminated with diesel fuel, fuel oil, gasoline or kerosene can present a substantial cleanup effort. However, the process is really very straight forward using OdorXit Concentrate and real TSP (Tri-sodium phosphate) cleaner. The key to removing the odor is to breakdown and emulsify the oil products as much as possible within safe product usage so that most of the oil can be removed with a shop vac. The rest can be neutralized by OdorXit Concentrate applied to the floor.

WARNING! It is extremely important that before attempting to remove any flammable product with a vacuum cleaner of any type or manufacture, every effort should be made to soak up all liquid material with baked clay absorbent or cat litter and removed by manual means and the air flushed of volatile and flammable gasses that are produced by these products. The flammable gasses, when picked up by a vacuum cleaner, can be ignited by the sparks that are always present in brush type electric vacuum cleaner motors.

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Removing Fuel and Oil from Machine Washable Rugs

Removing Diesel Fuel, Heating Oil, Gasoline and their odors from machine washable rugs is really quite simple. Just add 1 or 2 ounces of OdorXit Concentrate to the normal load of detergent and carpet. At the end of the wash cycle, stop the machine for 20 or 30 minutes to let it soak and do its job. Set the spin cycle and second wash continue normally and you will find the odor is completely removed.

Removing Diesel Fuel and Heating Oil from Carpet

Removing Diesel fuel and heating oil stains and odors from carpeting is a very difficult problem because: Diesel fuel and heating oil are dark colored oils They often containing colored dies They often contain both organic and inorganic chemical additives that have very strong odors.

The first problem is that diesel fuel and heating oil are not water soluble and most odor control products are water based. This means that the oil must be broken down with a detergent to make the coloring and most of the oil removable from the carpet fiber. This does several additional things, including removing the dirt resistant material (Scotch Guard) from the carpet and it leaves a residue of detergent on the carpet fibers.

Removing the dirt resistant material allows the carpet to become dirty much faster and makes it harder to clean with a vacuum cleaner. The detergent residue makes treating the carpet with enzyme products nearly 100% unsuccessful because enzymes are not compatible with detergent residue. There are some industrially available enzyme products what will work with low levels of detergent, but they are not normally available to lay customers and are not very friendly to your carpet.

Additives to fuels is by no means limited to diesel fuels or heating oil or even gasoline. Much of the additives are very unpleasant products that are supposed to make the fuels work better in the environment they were intended to be used in. There are water absorbers, anti-knock additives, a host of antipollution additives some of which are very dangerous and odorous.

If any of the above products make their way into the padding under the carpet you can be assured you have only one solution, at least for the padding. A utility knife to cut and remove the padding. Sad but true. And this does work most of the time for the padding.

If the smell is in the flooring, it depends on the type of flooring as to whether you will be successful removing diesel and heating oil odor from the flooring. Particle board and OSB (oriented strand board) are nearly impossible to repair. Plywood is usually pretty easy, Hardwood and laminate are iffy depending upon the size of the gaps between the board. A saw may be the recipe for these floorings too.