degreasing a concrete floor

I have degreassed several floors recently, not a nice job! I happend to have a steam cleaner at my disposal which makes the job a little easier but here's an idea.

From your local hire shop, get a wet vac. Spread a commercial degreaser (Gunk from car shops or 'TFR' from a commercial cleaning supplier) and scrub into the floor with a stiff brush. Leave for an hour, suck up with the wet vac, empty and flush the wet vac immediately. Repeat again, finishing off with 3 or 4 rinses with clear water.

IMHO a wet vac is one of the best cleaning tools around, just hire it as running chemicals through them doesn't seem to do them much good ;-)

Don't use Gunk. It's complete overkill as a degreaser here - this oil is just oily, not impermeable varnish.

More to the point, if you spill Gunk on concrete you'll _never_ get the smell of cresylic acid out.

Yup. Caustic soda and hot water (watch yer eys) will turn the fat more or less into soapy detergenty stuff, and will not harm the concrete at all.

Scriub away with that, and rinse off - but use old sponges because they go weird after a while with caustic.

thats the best solutin for real tiles. You may get away with a solvent like cellulose thinners as a cleaner if you are intending to use a solvent type stick down tile.

There are few things better than washing powder in my experience, eg Persil etc. Great for any organic stains. Carpets, floors, paintwork, even engines.. does the lot. Has to be biological, and preferably the handwash stuff as it 'foams' and helps lift the muck out, plus it doesn't have the anti-foaming agents [silicone?] that are necessary for auto washing machines and so doesn't leave any non-stick residue.

Just mix up a fairly strong solution, wash, rinse and repeat if needed.