The short answer
Remove ground-in oil from an industrial floor with an aqueous degreaser concentrate at 2–5%, applied warm where possible, given three to five minutes of dwell, then agitated with a scrubber and recovered wet. Solvent and diesel wash-downs spread the oil and create an effluent problem rather than solving one.
- Working concentration
- 2–5%
- Dwell before scrubbing
- 3–5 minutes
- Application
- Scrubber-drier, mop or pressure wash
- Replaces
- Diesel and kerosene wash-downs
- Bulk packing
- Up to 1000 L
Shop-floor oil is one of those problems that everyone accepts until an auditor or an accident makes it urgent. It is a slip hazard, it tracks into offices and onto parts, and on a concrete floor it soaks in progressively until the surface is permanently darkened.
Why diesel and kerosene wash-downs make it worse
The traditional depot method is to flood the floor with diesel or kerosene and squeegee it away. It looks effective because the oil visibly disperses. What actually happens is that the solvent dissolves the oil, carries it deeper into the concrete's pore structure, and evaporates — leaving the oil behind, distributed more thoroughly than before.
Then there is everything else: a flammable liquid spread across a working floor, hydrocarbon vapour in the building, a slip surface worse than the one you started with, and a wash-down that goes to drain as a hydrocarbon effluent nobody wants to be asked about.
Replacing exactly this practice — diesel, kerosene and naphtha wash-downs — with biodegradable aqueous chemistry is the work Roovel Solutions has been doing in Indian plants since 2000.
The method that works
- 1Sweep or vacuum first. Cleaning chemistry spent on loose swarf and dust is wasted, and grit turns a scrubber pad into an abrasive.
- 2Dilute to 2–5% depending on how heavily loaded the floor is. Start at the low end on maintained floors; go higher only on genuinely oil-soaked areas.
- 3Apply and let it dwell for three to five minutes. This is the step most often skipped, and it is where the chemistry actually does its work — scrubbing immediately means scrubbing plain water.
- 4Agitate with a scrubber-drier, a deck brush or a rotary machine. Mechanical energy is what releases oil that has been ground into the surface.
- 5Recover the solution wet, with the scrubber's vacuum or a wet vac. Letting it dry back onto the floor re-deposits everything you just lifted.
- 6Rinse if the floor is coated or if any residue would be walked into clean areas.
Concrete and epoxy behave differently
Bare concrete is porous, so oil penetrates and a single clean will lift what is near the surface while deeper oil wicks back over the following days. Heavily contaminated concrete usually needs two or three passes over a week before it stabilises — that is normal, not a chemical failure.
Epoxy and PU coatings are non-porous, so the oil sits on top and comes off far more easily. The constraint there is the coating: strongly alkaline or acidic chemistry can dull or degrade some coatings, so a neutral or mild formulation and a test patch in a corner are worth the five minutes.
Safety and effluent
A wet floor being degreased is more slippery than a dry oily one, so cordon the area and keep traffic off until it is recovered and dry. This sounds obvious and is the most common cause of injury during floor cleaning.
The recovered solution carries the oil you just removed. It should go to an interceptor or a treatment route rather than straight to a storm drain. Biodegradable aqueous chemistry with a declared composition is far easier to account for here than a solvent wash — which is a compliance advantage as well as a safety one.
Keeping it clean
Deep-cleaning a floor is a project; keeping it clean is a habit. Drip trays under machines, prompt spill response with absorbent granules, and a light regular scrub at 1–2% will hold a floor far more cheaply than repeated heavy cleans of a floor left to load up.
The same concentrate covers both duties — the difference is dilution and frequency, not product.
Tell us your floor type, area and how heavily loaded it is, and we will specify a concentration and method — plus bulk packing up to 1000 L for large facilities.
Get a floor cleaning planFrequently asked questions
What removes oil from a concrete workshop floor?
An aqueous degreaser concentrate at 2–5%, given three to five minutes of dwell, agitated with a scrubber and recovered wet. Concrete is porous, so heavily loaded floors usually need two or three passes over a week as deeper oil wicks back to the surface.
Can I use diesel or kerosene to clean the floor?
It is a bad trade. Solvent dissolves the oil and carries it deeper into the concrete rather than removing it, leaves a flammable liquid and hydrocarbon vapour in the building, produces a worse slip surface, and creates an effluent problem. Aqueous chemistry at 2–5% does the job without any of that.
Is the cleaner safe on epoxy floor coatings?
Use a neutral or mild formulation and test a patch in a corner first. Epoxy and PU are non-porous so the oil lifts easily, but strongly alkaline or acidic chemistry can dull or degrade some coatings.
Why does the floor still look grey after cleaning?
Usually insufficient dwell time, or oil that has penetrated porous concrete deeply. Give the solution three to five minutes before scrubbing, and expect a heavily loaded concrete floor to need two or three passes before it stabilises.
What happens to the dirty water?
It carries the oil you removed, so it should go to an interceptor or a treatment route, not a storm drain. Biodegradable aqueous chemistry with a declared composition is much easier to account for than a solvent wash-down.