On Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 10:33:44 AM UTC-5, DerbyDad03 wrote:
On Wednesday, July 15, 2015 at 10:42:47 AM UTC-4, HerHusband wrote:
My daughters car developed a leak around the oil pressure switch and
created a big oil mess where she parks on our gravel driveway. I don't know
how long it has been leaking, but judging from the large two foot circle of
oil, I'm guessing at least a few months.

Short of digging out the contaminated rock and replacing it with new
gravel, is there anything I can do to clean up the oil spill in the gravel?
It has already soaked into the ground so I'm not expecting to remove every
trace, but it would be nice to clean up the "appearance" of the spill.

Would something like a standard degreaser (engine cleaner or cleaner for
concrete oil spills) work on gravel? I realize this would just cause the
oil to drain further into the soil, but it's already contaminated and I'm
not planning to dig it all out.

Thanks,

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com

I wonder what the standard practice of using kitty litter would do in this case. If you sprinkled kitty litter on the area, might it absorb the oil and eventually wash down into the gravel/disintegrate?

My guess is that anything you do, short of moving a bunch of gravel around to blend it all together, is going to leave a tell-tale sign for some period of time. There is no way you will get the oil off the gravel and leave the area looking like it did before the leak. I doubt any cleaner will attack only the oil and leave the gravel as dirty as it was before. I'd like to see the science behind something that can do that. ;-)

I too was thinking of kitty litter or oil dry which is essentially the same thing but he's going to have to do more than sprinkle it on. He'll need to dump it on and mix it in with a gravel rake so it coats all the contaminated gravel. He'd do well to mix it up with the rake every few days and work in some more oil dry. I'd put it on oil stains on my friend's concrete driveway, sweep up the first application after a day then put down some more and let the rain wash it away. I works better on concrete if you grind it in with your boot. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Stain Monster