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Our window cleaner's van dumped a good amount of engine oil on our drive on Thursday morning. It's a patch 2m X 1m, plus runoff onto the road from the sloping drive. I came home, called them and they promised to clean up.
Today, Monday, someone has tried to clean up with fairy liquid.
It's done nothing to shift it.
It looks and smells awful.
Questions:
Is the oil is now 'in' the tarmac and won't shift properly?
What might shift the oil?
They've already spoken about a patch on the drive - but the drive is only a few years old, so in my view they should replace it all?
It'll come off*. They will need something like swarfega oil and grease driveway cleaner .a stiff brush and a pressurer washer
Your not going to get. A new drive out of it.
*I have a pink concrete drive and old cars...... I'm frequently removing oil marks.
Kitty litter trampled in would soak most of it out, then washing tabs diluted (strong solution) scrubbed and left damp overnight. Then rinse off with hot water. Worked just fine for me when I did an oil change, (filter, sump seal washer and forgot to...)
You won't get a new driveway out of that, unrealistic. If they offer to patch it I'd still be surprised and bite their hand off as most would just fairy liquid it and move on.
My dad used to use petrol to clean it. Poured a fair bit on and lit it up.
Petrol disolves the bitumen so don't use that.
I don't think petrol will dissolve bitumin, it'll evaporate.
The reason crashes close motorways for so long is usually diesel or oil spilt on the tarmac does soak in an weaken the bitumen, and doesn't flash off so softens and weakens the road surface so they do have to cut out and replace any sections with oil/diesel spilt on them. Whether that's an issue for your driveway 🤷 might get sticky crap on the soles of your shoes on a sunny day, but you'v not got 40t lorries thundering over it tearing it up.
Oh it does dissolve it, you end up with a soft hole. Son had a leaky petrol tank, dissolved a hole in my drive and the parking spaces. Patched it, then repainted the whole drive with tarmac paint - worked really well.
Lots Wd40 left for ten minutes or so and followed by scrubbing with detergent and water cleared my last motorbike oil change fiasco from our front garden, not tarmac though so at your own risk!!!!
I once spilt half a litre of oil on a tarmac drive. Cleaned up excess, maybe tried fairy liquid, the drive was stained but weathered after a few months till you couldn't tell. So I'd advise you don't attack it with all sorts that could make it worse and just wait.
You need to contact their business insurer and do the job properly, assuming that they do have insurance
That might trigger your home insurer, so remember that come renewal
Tarmac is horrible stuff to clean, get it wrong and it'll fall apart hastened by the pressure washer