LESLIE: Kathy in Arizona is on the line and needs some help cleaning the garage. What can we do for you?
KATHY: Well, we bought this house last fall and the garage floor is covered with grease from the cars – but I don’t know how to clean it up. I’m just wondering if I can do that myself or if I’ve got to hire somebody to do that.
TOM: I think you can do it yourself. What you want to do is pick up some trisodium phosphate. It’s known as TSP. You’ll see it in the hardware store or paint aisle of a home center. Mix that up into a paste-like consistency and cover the area of the stain. Let it sit for a while and then wash it out. Now, old oil stains are among the most difficult to take up but it will brighten it up a bit.
And if you want it to be cleaner than that, what I would do is I would wash the floor, let it dry really well and then paint the garage floor. You could use an epoxy painting – garage-floor painting system. It’s a two-part epoxy that’s chemical-cured. So you mix the two parts of the paint together, you apply it to the floor, then you wait an hour or two and it basically hardens right up for you. And then it’ll be a lot easier to clean after that.
KATHY: OK. So I can still put that epoxy over if I don’t get all this grease up?
TOM: No. Once you lean up the grease, as I mentioned, you may – it may – the grease may be up but it might still be stained. And if you wanted to make it look nicer, then you could paint it.
LESLIE: Yeah. Because the beginning part of this kit is usually like an etching compound that sort of prepares the floor to receive the coating. So if you can just get the actual grease off, even though the stain is there, it’ll prepare it so that it will adhere to it.
KATHY: Alright. OK. Alright. Thank you.
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