Tips for Cleaning Your Garage Floor

If you’ve taken the cleanliness of your garage floor for granted, that’s okay. You’re not alone. Plenty of homeowners overlook the importance of keeping their garage floor grease and dirt-free.

However, it’s never too late to prioritize cleaning your garage floor. Keep in mind that cleaning it isn’t purely for aesthetics. It also helps avoid accidents like slips and falls due to oil spills and other hazards.

What to Do Before Cleaning

Before starting with the actual cleaning job, there are some things you need to prepare. Here are some of the crucial things you shouldn’t miss:

Park Your Car Elsewhere

You’ll need to find a safe space to park your vehicle while you’re cleaning. You can’t effectively clean all the corners of your floor if your car is parked there.

Remove Unnecessary Things

It will be difficult to clean your garage if there are things scattered around. If you store your old bike or any equipment in your garage, move them somewhere else temporarily.

Tools and other storage boxes should be transferred to another space as well. Lastly, you can also check if there are used rags that need to be cleaned or thrown away.

Cover Your Drywall and Outlets

While cleaning, water and other cleaning agents can scatter across different areas. It’s a good idea to cover your drywall and outlets with a tarpaulin or sheet to protect them from potential damage and corrosion. Covering these areas will also reduce the risk of electric hazards.

Tips on How to Effectively Clean Your Garage Floor

Most garage floors are made of polished concrete. And luckily, concrete floors are fairly easy to clean and maintain. Here are some tips on how to keep your garage floor clean:

Sweep Your Garage Floor Regularly

It’s important to sweep your garage floor at least once a week, or whenever you can. Dirt and dust can easily accumulate on the surface of your concrete floor, making it harder for you to clean it in the long run.

Also, de-icing salt can accumulate on the floor during winter. This can damage your concrete floor, leaving you with no choice but to have your garage floor repaired.

It’s advisable to use a wide push broom to sweep off dirt and other debris. This type of broom is usually used to clean large areas like floors, sidewalks, and driveways.

Remove Rust Stains

Rust stains make your garage floor look dirty. You can always scrub your floor with a basic cleaning solution, but that may not be enough to remove stubborn rust stains.

To remove this type of stain, you’ll need to mix an ounce of trisodium phosphate (TSP) in a gallon of hot water. Pour it on the concrete surface and leave the solution for fifteen to twenty minutes.

If you’re looking for a more natural alternative, you can pour pure white vinegar or lemon juice directly onto the rust stain. Both lemon juice and vinegar are acidic in nature, so they can help remove stains that aren’t too bad.

You also have the option to buy a commercial rust-removing solution from your local home and garden store. Make sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions when using this type of solution.

Apply the solution and scrub the stains with a brush with tough bristles to get rid of the stains easily.

Get Rid of Oil Stains

Aside from rust stains, it’s common for a concrete garage floor to have oil stains. Oil can drip onto the garage floor during repair work. Worn gaskets, damaged seals, and other similar issues may also cause oil to leak from your vehicle.

To get rid of oil stains, you simply have to put sawdust, absorbent floor granules (like Oil Dri), or cat litter on the area and leave it overnight to absorb excess oil. You can scrub out the remaining stain in the morning. 

For porous concrete you might need to pour mineral spirits (or equivalent) on the stain before using the absorbent floor granules (which is the same thing as cat litter but is sold in larger bags in parts stores).

You also have the option to buy a commercial oil and grease cleaner. Follow the instructions indicated on the product and scrub the remaining stain afterward.

Pro Tips are nuggets of information direct from ASE-certified automobile technicians working with CarParts.com, which may include unique, personal insights based on their years of experience working in the automotive industry. These can help you make more informed decisions about your car.

Pro Tip: You can get a cleaning soap concentrate that you mix with water (like Purple Power). If you have a mop bucket with a mop head squeezer, you can pour the water/concentrate mix on the floor and then mop it up, squeezing the mop into the bucket rather than mopping with water from the bucket, which doesn’t work nearly as well. If you pour the clean mix on the floor and then mop it up and squeeze out the mop, the dirty water never sees the floor again.

Repair Cracks

After cleaning the stains on your garage floor, it’s also a good idea to repair any cracks.

Remove any loose edges within the crack. You can use a hammer and chisel to do this. After that, you can remove the debris using a shop vacuum.

Use a putty knife to fill in the crack with epoxy paste, and scrape away any excess epoxy. After you’re done, you can smoothen the surface using a trowel. Don’t forget to sand the area after the paste has dried.

Apply a Concrete Sealer

After cleaning your garage floors, consider applying a commercial concrete sealer. Applying a concrete sealant will help prevent stains on your garage floor. There is also very good garage floor paint available if you want to make the floor more attractive.

If you’re not sure which product to use, you can contact a concrete contractor to help you choose the right sealer for your garage floor.

Make sure to follow the instructions that came with the concrete sealer to achieve optimal results.

Is It Okay to Use a Pressure Washer to Clean Your Garage Floor?

If you have a concrete garage floor, there will be no issue using a pressure washer. You can do this after removing all the stains and oil spots.

Make sure to set the device to a lower pressure setting when using a degreasing solution. This will allow the degreasing solution to loosen up the grime. You can gradually increase the pressure as you rinse the solution off your concrete floor.