Waste oil spill... What a mess!

[Russ]

Those of us that work with waste oil know how messy it can be, especially if it is out of a diesel engine.  Well, I was off to work this morning and to my surprise when I opened the garage door I was greeted to a very large puddle of oil on the garage floor.  At first I just couldn't figure out where it would have came from.  I have two 55 gallon barrels full and moved them around yesterday.  I thought maybe skidding them on the floor punctured a hole in them.  Nope.  My brand new plastic 15 gallon holding tank that feeds my constant level tank was the problem.  I filtered about 4 gallons into the holding tank, ran the heater a bit, then shut things down.  On the bottom of my holding tank I drilled a hole and fitted it with a plastic barbed fitting and JB welded it in.  Put it on extra thick so it wouldn't leak.  Well apparently the JB weld (the quick weld version) didn't adhere to the plastic and broke clean loose.  Then all the oil leaked out all over the floor.  What a mess!  Thankfully I hadn't filled it full, but the 3 remaining gallons did a good job of making a mess.  I don't know if it was the quick weld that was the problem, the composition of the plastic barrel, or a combination of the two that it just broke clean off.  Might have to avoid the quick weld from now on.  The mess is mostly cleaned up after hours of cleaning.  Floor dry is very helpful.  Thankfully our small town hardware store had some.  Then soapy water, dish soap, fast orange hand soap and a scrub brush have done a pretty good job.  I put the fast orange right on the oil, scrubbed it in with a brush, then washed it off with soapy water.  Gonna get some more floor dry tomorrow and hopefully finish.

Anyway guys, stay safe on the fire side of things and be cautious when handling this stuff.  It doesn't take much oil to have a huge mess on your hands.

[tightwad nik]

oil is amazing, a little goes a long long way, it can be a very thin layer and covers anything and everything, great stuff most of the time, but a bugger when it spills

[genius]

Get yourself a bag with lime. You throw some lime on oil - just enough to cover it. Wait few minutes, till the lime sucks up the oil. Then with some old fine whisk you can easily clean it.

greetings from Slovakia.

[techdif]

Isn't it just amazing how those kinds of things happen when the weather cools? Mine was on a quart or so, but it also ran down the side of my heater. Out with the oil dry and scrubbed it around a bit, then swept it up. Then hit the heater and the floor with half a can or so of brake cleaner and then a little more oil dry. Worked pretty good, but hey I'm easy to please lol! Oh it was kind of rough when I lit the heater back to burn it off, but 10 min or so with the bay doors open fixed that.

[SLRS]

Don't waste your money on oil dry.  Cat litter is the same thing and MUCH cheaper.

[HT32B-SX115]

Yeah,

If your plastic tank is HDPE or LDPE,  no epoxy will reliably stay “stuck”to it.
There are other plastics that don’t play well with any epoxy too

[Russ]

Yea, I was in love with JB weld when I found out about it.  After the oil spill, not so much.

[Oilburner]

You haven't had a real oil spill till you loose 200L in one go.

For clean up, I use KOH or NAOH. it's available at commercial cleaning places in 25KG bags. it's the concerntrate of soap basically.

If the oil is pooled I get it up with a  squeege or a wet and dry vac. Doesent have to be all gone and I'm not too fussy with it.
I then spray the area down with water then sprinlkle on the KOH. Best not to use bare hands, it WILL take the skin clean off. You will feel it burn like no tomorrow as well.  Once the KOH is sprinkled round, broom the powder around and mix it with the oil and water. You'll get a creamy substance which is then soap.  I like to let it all sit a while and then come back about every 5 Min and broom over again and add more KOH if need be. If' it's hot spray more water without it running off to keep it wet. After about 15 Min broom over and hose off.

You concrete will be cleaner than when you started with veg and only have a light stain with diesel oil. that is fouls stuff indeed. I don't think there is really any way to clean that off, it soaks into the cement itself and always leaves a stain.

Best thing I found to get rid of the stain if you have to is mix up a think cement mix and spread it over the affected area then sweep it off when dry.  doesent' get the stain out, just covers it back up to the regular cement colour.