How To Clean Concrete Easily

The steps in how to clean concrete are the same if it is the concrete floor of your garage or the walls of your basement. In fact, you can use these same steps to clean stains on brick as well.

Oil and other car fluid stains are unfortunately pretty common on garage floors. If you like to keep your car in the garage and are going to take the time to clean the concrete, consider also painting or sealing the concrete after you do a thorough cleaning to keep it clean.

Ok, let’s start with a fresh oil stain.

As soon as you notice the spill, get yourself some kitty litter and generously cover the spill. It will pull the liquid in and you should be able to sweep it and the oil up in a day or so.

For those not-so-fresh oil stains you should also try a coating of kitty litter to absorb what it can.
Powdered cement might absorb a bit more then sweep that up after a couple of days.

After soaking up what you can, use a strong solution of laundry soap and water and a stiff bristled brush – or rent a floor scrubber to make it easier – and scrub away as much as you can.
If you have a wet dry vac, use that to suck up the water or just rinse it off with a hose.
You may have to repeat this a few times depending on how big the spill was.

Feel the stain with your hand and clean it until it no longer feels greasy.

I can tell you how to clean concrete but with an oil stain, most of the time you will never completely erase it.

How to clean concrete of efflorescence

If you have what looks like dusty white powder on your concrete, this is a salt in the concrete that leaches out as the concrete dries out.

This efflorescence won’t damage the concrete but if there is a lot of it, you should check to see if there is water seeping in since you often notice this deposit where there is moisture.

You can remove this mineral deposit by using a DRY stiff bristled brush.
It may come back after a couple weeks but eventually it will stop.
Never try to wash it off with water, since it is a moisture related effect already. Also, be sure not to seal or paint in an area where you are still getting the deposit or the moisture that is still in the concrete will eventually bubble the paint.

Stains other than oil or grease or the efflorescence we talked about can be cleaned with a solution of 1 part muriatic acid to 10 parts water.

ALWAYS POUR THE ACID INTO THE WATER NOT WATER INTO ACID

Make sure the area is well ventilated and use rubber gloves and then scrub the solution into the floor with a power scrubber.
After scrubbing for 10 minutes or so rinse the area well with water.

The concrete will be about as clean as possible.

Now consider putting just a bit more time in and seal or paint the concrete so stains won’t be able to penetrate next time.