Pets are part of many families and bring joy to many homes. However, having pet urine stains on concrete floors is a concern to many people because of the stringent odor it brings. Additionally, cleaning pet urine from concrete and other flooring surfaces is not easy because the area always seems to give off a permanent urine odor.

Read on to learn how to remove pet urine odors from concrete using the proper techniques that ensure you have clean smelling floors.

Why Is Pet Urine Bad for Concrete?

Concrete is a relatively porous material; therefore, water and other liquids that come into contact with unsealed concrete will saturate and seep down into it. This saturation and seeping of water are usually harmless; however, it’s not good when it comes to pet urine.

When urine gets in contact with concrete and dries, the uric acid crystals found in urine bond tightly to the concrete; these crystals from deep within the capillaries and pores of concrete because the urine was allowed to soak for several days or months.

Additionally, when a pet urine smell is activated, it can find its way into anyone’s nose that is in the area. However, removing pet urine odor from concrete does not have to be complicated if you use the proper techniques.

What Cleans Urine Out of Concrete?

Most concrete surfaces with pet urine odors need to be treated in a two-stage process. Sometimes, the surfaces might require an additional treatment stage depending on the pet enzymatic product or urine odor remover used.

Additionally, you might have to use a wet vacuum in the cleaning process, especially if your basement has urine odors and doesn’t have an available drain. The wet vacuum helps to draw bacteria out of the concrete during the cleaning process.

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Regular cleaning does not get rid of pet stains and odors quickly; the stains may or may not disappear; however, the smell remains because uric acid is insoluble and doesn’t bind with regular cleaning agents and soaps. Therefore, the crystals stay attached to the concrete, and the odor remains.

Urine smell might dispel temporarily after a thorough cleaning; however, when any moisture is introduced to the concrete surface, the smell comes back just as strong as before. The return of the pungent smell is because uric acid crystals release a gas whenever moisture is introduced.

You can clean urine out of concrete using this procedure:

Identify Urine Areas in Concrete Using a Black Light or U.V. Light

If you want to get the best from an enzymatic pet urine cleaner, you should identify the exact areas in the concrete affected by the urine. You can quickly identify the source of pet urine odor, for example, a place where pets were kept in a pen.

However, sometimes the smell might not be easy to detect, especially if you move into a home that previously had pets and finds that the garage floor reeks of an unpleasant urine smell. The previous homeowner might have cleaned the stains, making it challenging to identify the odor source.

You can use a black light or U.V. light to identify pet urine. All you have to do is close the doors, turn on the light, and hold it no more than three feet off the concrete as you scan the floor in sections. Blue, yellow, or green markings imply that the surface has old urine stains.

After identifying the stains (and differentiating them from oil stains and such), you can encircle the far outside areas with arrows pointing towards the urine stain. You can do the encircling using chalk, as long as you don’t get it wet.

Additionally, also check the first two feet of your walls from the floor up because sometimes pets will urinate on the floors, and you might have to eradicate the smell by replacing the affected section of the drywall.

If the U.V. light fails to reveal any pet urine stains, you might have to use your nose to do the work. The smelling process takes longer; however, it’s pretty effective.

If you want to identify put urine smell, open the doors to air out the garage and remove the immediate smell. Next, get down on your hands and knees and start sniffing to find the urine areas.

Preparing the Floor

Once you’ve identified the pet urine areas, proceed to clean off the floor to remove any dirt or debris. Working on a clean and dust-free surface is straightforward and effortless compared to a dirty and littered one.

Next, arrange the furniture in a way that will give you ample space to remove the odor from the concrete floor.

Remove any sticky substances stuck on the floor, such as the previous carpet glue, by scraping. Sweep off all the scrapings, and make sure that the surface is clean and tidy before starting the cleaning process.

You can also clean the area with urine stains using Trisodium Phosphate (TSP) because most enzymatic cleaners used in cleaning urine odors from concrete floors don’t remove bacteria. TSP removes pet urine stain on concrete, bacteria, and residue left from urine.

However, it leaves uric acid crystals behind. Therefore, you will still have to clean the area using an enzymatic pet urine cleaner to eradicate the uric acid crystals.

Follow the following steps to clean the area using TSP:

• First, wear gloves and eye protection for safety.
• Next, mix a gallon of hot water and a ½ cup of TSP in a bucket.
• Pour the TSP solution onto the urine stain area and wait for at least ten minutes to allow the solution to soak into the concrete. (Urine odor might increase as you soak the concrete because urine residue and uric acid crystals will react and release a gas when in contact with water)
• Scrub the area with a short bristled nylon brush.
• Pour clean hot water over the treated area and vacuum up the water using a wet vacuum. This step removes the TSP solution and helps to suck up any remaining urine residue on the concrete surface.
• Allow the concrete to dry for at least 24 hours before using urine enzymatic cleaners because they work best when the concrete is completely dry before treatment.
• Repeat the above procedure at least twice to get rid of bacteria. However, you might want to do it three times if you’re dealing with a heavily soiled area.

It’s best to note that TSP might create a whiter looking area on your garage floors because it’s getting concrete very clean; therefore, you might want to scrub the rest of the concrete floor using the solution to achieve a more consistent and clean look to the floor.

Use Pet Urine Enzymatic Cleaner on the Concrete Floor

Pets’ urine contains uric acid particles, which are insoluble and stick tightly to the floor’s surface. Therefore, regular cleaning agents won’t get the job done because soap and water cannot bind with the uric acid crystals; consequently, they remain put.

Knowing how to clean dog urine on the stained concrete floor using an enzymatic cleaning solution will save you labor and energy. Additionally, it would be best if you only bought enzymatic cleaners made specifically for pet urine.

Here is how you can use an enzymatic cleaner to remove pet urine from concrete:

• Prepare the enzymatic solution according to the manufacturer’s instructions and saturate the affected area with the cleaner. You can also pour the cleaner out and spread it around evenly using a deck scrub brush.
• Do not dilute the cleaner with water; use it at full strength.
• Allow the cleaner to sit for a day to ensure that it works its way down into the concrete and does not evaporate quickly into the air as it starts to dry. Remember that the longer the stain eating enzymes digest the odor causing molecules, the more effective the process will be.
• You can control evaporation by laying a large plastic tarp or liner over the sprayed area. This process will allow the solution to penetrate better into the urine-stained concrete.
• Allow the surface to dry for at least 24 hours.

How to Protect Your Concrete Floor from Pet Urine

You might want to seal a concrete surface to prevent any residual pet urine odor from working its way back to the surface. You can do this by applying a Deep Penetrating Sealer (DPS) to a concrete surface to neutralize any preexisting bacteria and lockout any new odors from entering.

Additionally, the sealer crystallizes through concrete, making it completely waterproof. You can also use the sealant to prevent urine smell because it doesn’t allow any liquids to penetrate because of its hydrophobic nature. Therefore, liquids bead up on the concrete, ready to be rinsed away, and no smell is created.

Does Vinegar Clean Animal Urine?

You can use vinegar to clean animal urine because it’s acidic; therefore, it will neutralize the bacteria found in animal urine, and it’s a great replacement to clean up pet stains.

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Animal urine contains uric acid; however, when you pour vinegar onto the contaminated area, it will break down the stain within five to ten minutes. Additionally, vinegar’s components serve as a natural germ-killer.

Do not let pet urine odor chock you or your visitors. You can use the cleaning procedure discussed above to remove cat pee on the garage floor, and other pet smells.