Cleaning Cat Urine From Concrete Floor: [Pro-Methods]

Have you ever discovered that your cat disobeyed your instruction to urinate in its litter box and a stinking smell was coming from some part of your concrete floor instead? Well, many cat owners have experienced this kind of situation at least once.

Cats are generally smart and well-mannered cute, furry bundles of joy. But like everybody else, they also get a little mischievous sometimes and end up doing what they are told not to. If you’ve got a cat and a concrete floor at home, you should better keep yourself prepared to handle any such occurrence with efficiency and ease.

To clean cat urine from a concrete floor, mix equal parts water and white vinegar, then scrub the affected area thoroughly and rinse with clean water. Alternatively, use an enzyme-based cleaner specifically designed to break down and eliminate pet urine odor and stains.

This article is going to provide you with an effective, step-by-step method to clean up the concrete floor after it encounters an unpleasant episode of cat urination on its surface. It will also shed light on the fact that cat urine is specifically bad for a concrete floor. Let’s get started:

Cleaning Cat Urine From Concrete: A Step-by-Step Guide

To begin with, concrete is somewhat of a porous flooring material to a certain extent. And, cat urine is quite a dense liquid (a lot more concentrated than that of humans). The intertwined combination of these two factors makes the cleaning process a tricky one. But if you know the pro-mechanism, this job becomes a piece of cake for you. Let’s get right into it: 

Phase-1: Locate The Surface Area Contaminated By Cat Urine

This phase gets a lot easier in cases when the puddle of cat urine is distinctly visible to you. But a lot of times, the apparent pool of water is nowhere to be seen. Yet you know from the odor that your cat has peed somewhere on the floor.

The job is to find exactly where that is. In this scenario, the most effective mechanism is to use a UV light or black light. Hold the light in the proximity of fewer than 3 feet on the concrete floor and keep scanning to locate the affected area.

These lights will make a lot of other impurities visible, but you’ll generally be able to identify the particular cat urine contamination that you’re looking for.

The tip is – upon throwing the beams of black light in a dark room, cat urine will specifically glow yellow, green, or blue. And you’ll know exactly where to clean up. After the affected area is identified, mark the location using chalk for easy future reference.  

Phase 2: Understand The Core Problems For Better Preparation

After identifying the specific contaminated area, it’s time to start preparing for the cleaning. First of all, understanding the nature of a particular problem increases the viability and efficacy of the solution process. This kind of evaluation will give you a better idea about what procedure and ingredients you should choose as per the severity of the problem.

Even though concrete floors have the appearance of solid, hard, uniformly consistent, almost impenetrable surfaces, these floors are porous to some extent. There are so many tiny pores in this kind of flooring and any liquid substance can soak deeply into the concrete. 

The propensity of absorption for concrete floors is quite high in terms of cat urine. This is because cat urine is highly concentrated as compared to regular water or other liquid substances.

That’s why a traditional cleaning method using typical household cleaners, for example – scrubbing with soap water, cleaning soda, etc may not suffice to clean up in this particular case.

There’s a high probability that you’ll need a stronger solution to deal with this issue. Figure out whether you need an exclusive process different from regular household cleaning or not. 

Phase 3: Run A Pre-Clean To Remove Old Residues

Regardless of what treatment you ultimately adopt to clean up cat urine from your concrete floor, always make sure to remove all sorts of old residue from that particular surface before you begin the main cleaning task. This way, your clean-up process will get much easier and more efficient. Therefore, your primary purpose will be served a lot better. 

In addition to that, it’s important to remove the bacteria from that particular area before the main clean-up. Instead of soap, moping and soaking the area in vinegar is helpful. This is because soap can make cat urine even worse and the odor will get more difficult to deal with. 

Soak the area in white vinegar and leave it to dry. After it dries up, prepare a mixture of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Apply this mixture to that area and scrub it into the floor with a scrubber sponge or deck brush. Then let the mixture sit over the area until it dries. Once dry, clean it up using warm water.  

Phase-4: The Clean-Up Process

Now, it’s time to get into the main task of cleaning cat urine from the concrete floor. There are a couple of effective ways to do that – The Enzymatic method and The Ionic method.  

These pro-methods are as follows: 

Enzymatic Treatment: 

This method uses enzyme-based cleaning products, as the name suggests. Grab some high-performing enzyme-based cleaners from the store, and you are good to go with the procedure. 

At the beginning of this cleaning step, it is recommended to use a pH neutralizer before applying the enzyme cleaning products. This is especially important if the particular floor area had previously been cleaned with soap or bleach.

If yes, then the area probably contains a higher amount of base on the inside. So, a pH neutralizer would increase the efficacy of the floor to respond to the enzyme-based products.    

Using enzymatic products is one of the most recommended ways to clean cat urine from concrete floors. The reason behind this is that urine from any type of mammal, be it human or cat, contains a high degree of uric acid crystals. These crystals are extremely difficult to eliminate.

Moreover, they are also the primary cause behind such strong odor and stubborn stains. There are not many proven materials more efficient than enzyme products to remove these uric crystals. 

To proceed with the enzyme-cleaner treatment, soak the area in the enzyme product first. Then work it in with a sponge, deck-brush, or mop. Remember that you should not dry the area by yourself.

Instead, let it be wet as it is. The best thing to do is to cover the area with plastic to help it remain wet. This will make room for the enzyme cleaner to get more time to soak into the concrete steadily and efficiently. Let the area dry on its own. 

You may need to repeat the aforementioned procedure if your problem is somewhat grave. It depends on how long the cat’s urine was on the floor before it was cleaned, and how many times your cat has peed on that particular spot.

To know if you need to redo the process, use the black light to determine if there’s any contamination left. If you don’t see anything glow under the blacklight, congratulations! You have successfully removed cat urine from your concrete floor.    

Ionic Treatment: 

Using Ions to clean cat urine from the concrete floor is yet another effective option for you. This is relatively newer than the two clean-up mechanisms. 

Let’s get right into the process: 

Ionic treatment can be split into 2 categories. These procedures are based on the overall situation of your flooring as well as the contamination. I’m discussing both processes and you can choose the one that best suits the scenario you are in. 

Ionic Treatment Method-A: 

If an area of your concrete floor has been contaminated with cat urine for the first time, this process specifically comes into play. This process requires you to do a couple of very simple tasks. 

First, saturate the area with warm water and subsequently use a vacuum cleaner or wet vac to suction it up. Then just apply the ion-cleaner and allow it to dry on its own. Pretty simple, right? Well, if you find yourself in this particular situation then consider yourself lucky. Because it is the best-case scenario. 

Ionic Treatment Method-B: 

This process is for a more severe problem. And, this is the one that most people happen to go through. Because most of the time, we are not lucky with issues like cat urine. 

If your concrete floor has been exposed to cat urine over and over again in the same area for a long period and you haven’t been successful in removing the urine in its entirety by other methods, this type of ionic treatment is exclusively required for you. 

Get a high-performance ionic-based odor-cleaning product/set of products available in the market. I’m narrating the procedure using the ‘Live Pee Free’ urine remover kit.

The names on the constituent bottle labels may vary if you choose to use other brands of ionic product kits. But you’ll usually identify the right bottle for each step by some common connotations on the labels.   

Let’s get back to the cleaning procedure now. Follow this 3-step process: 

1st Step: 

At the start, heavily pour or spray the solution from the ‘Odor Eliminator Liquid’ bottle onto the contaminated surface area. Let this liquid soak down into the concrete until it dries on its own. It is the best recommendation to wait for 8 hours for the solution to completely soak in.

You can keep the area covered with plastic or towels for a few hours to slow down the evaporation process. This way, the liquid can further reach down into the depth of porous concrete.   

2nd Step: 

In this step, spatter on the granules from the bottle that has a label somewhat like ‘Odor Block Granules’. Sprinkle it thoroughly over the affected area regardless of whether there are bigger stains or smaller ones. Let the granules sit on the concrete surface for at least 4 hours.

After that, sweep it up or suction it with a vacuum cleaner. In this process, the granules work to pull apart the old uric crystals. Then lift the crystals onto the substance you have previously sprinkled.

When this chemical reaction is activated, the granules will get some yellowish blotches and the odor of urine will smell much stronger. 

These are the signs indicating that the old crystals of urine are now torn apart and the odor is getting driven out of the concrete efficiently. 

3rd Step: 

This is the last step of this type of ionic treatment. You are now required to scatter the powder from the ‘Instant Knockout Granules’ bottle. Leave it to dry for a few hours, then sweep or vacuum it up. The final step is thus completed. If you’ve conducted all the steps properly, the cat urine from your concrete floor has been removed successfully. 

Phase-5: Seal Your Concrete Floor To Protect It In The Future

After successfully cleaning up the cat urine from your concrete floor and driving away all those ugly stains and unpleasant odors, you might want to seal your floor to protect it from a similar kind of situation in the future. 

Considering the amount of effort, time, and elbow grease you put into succeeding in the huge, multi-layered clean-up task you undertook, it’s only wise to make sure that you don’t get caught up in such a problem anytime soon. That’s why I strongly recommend applying a proper sealer to your concrete floor. 

Sealing will provide general protection for your concrete floor concerning future problematic incidents. It will also prevent this kind of porous floor surface from sucking in moisture. Prevention of moisture will further prevent the release of any urine stain that may have gone unnoticed while cleaning. In addition, sealing the concrete floor will bar odors from coming up again. 

While choosing the right concrete sealer, check for a decent anti-slip rating. A low-sheen sealer would be better as it provides easy cleaning. There are quite a few good-grade sealer products in the market that come in very nice colors. These sealers are going to look even more beautiful than any kind of paint. 

Let me suggest something interesting – you can opt to sand the concrete first if you want, and then paint your sealer on it. Concrete sealers will provide comprehensive protection from unfortunate events like your cat urinating on the floor for years to come.     

When To Prefer Ionic Products Over Enzymes? 

You may be wondering which one you should choose between enzyme and ion since both of them are quite efficient. To help you understand better and make the right choice, here are a few instances that call for ionic treatment in particular: 

• If you’ve already tried and failed to remove the contamination, stain, or odor using other cleaning methods such as enzyme-based cleaning, or regular household cleaning method. 

• If you don’t want to go through the potential repetition, and rather want an instant, time-efficient remedy. 

• If you don’t like the odors generated by other types of cleaning products and want an odor-free solution. Ionic cleaners are odor-free. 

• If you want to use a cleaning product that has a much longer shelf-life as opposed to an enzyme cleaner. 

• If you want a solution that is more cost-effective as compared to enzymes. 

• If you don’t want to wait for the longer amount of time that an enzyme treatment takes to activate its biological process. 

FAQs Related To Cleaning Cat Urine From Concrete Floors:

Does Cat Pee Stay In Concrete? 

While regular cleaning methods are unable to remove cat urine from concrete floors, it is otherwise very possible by some specialized methods. If you follow all the required steps accurately, cat pee won’t stay in your concrete. Nor would it stink with an unpleasant odor.  

Having said that, failure to clean up properly with the right product and method will result in a dominant presence of cat pee deep inside the concrete. This is primarily due to 2 reasons – 

1. Cat pee is a highly concentrated liquid, even more than human pee. 

2. Concrete floors are quite porous and absorb moisture or liquids very easily.  

A pro-level clean-up procedure using high-quality products will make cat pee go away from your concrete floor. And, subsequent sealing of the concrete can make it resistant to further cat urination likely to happen in the future.  

Will Bleach Get Cat Urine Smell Out Of Concrete? 

Bleach will not get the urine smell out of concrete. While bleach can work as a disinfectant, it is unable to drive out the odor generated from urine crystals stuck inside a concrete floor. Moreover, in this particular scenario involving concrete floor and urine of any kind of mammal, using bleach can get specifically harmful to a dangerous extent. 

Urine generally contains urea produced inside the body. After urine is released from the body and comes outside, the urea in it contracts bacteria present in the atmosphere. This is when urea gets converted to ammonia following the chemical reaction. If the amount of urea found in a particular type of urine is very heavy, a lot of ammonia is generated. In this case, it may exceed the safety limit for ammonia deposits. 

If a higher amount of ammonia gets in touch with bleach, the chemical constituents of these two will react strongly. This reaction might produce an extremely dangerous gas. All these may happen but the cat urine smell will remain there. 

The odor may even get worse and stronger given all the chemical breakdowns. Reason enough to avoid trying bleach to eliminate urine odor, right? 

Well, enzyme or ion-based cleaning products are specifically manufactured to help you out regarding this issue. These products work effectively as well as are quite safe to get rid of urine odor from concrete floors. Opt for these instead.  

Can You Use Vinegar On Cat Urine? 

Vinegar can be used on cat urine. It is rather wiser to use white vinegar to neutralize the bacteria in cat urine before applying an enzymatic cleaner. This process will increase the efficiency of the concrete to response to enzymes. Vinegar works as a pH neutralizer for a floor that has previously been cleaned with soap water, bleach, etc at any point in time. 

Enzymatic cleaners will perform better on a concrete floor that has been neutralized with white vinegar as compared to the ones that haven’t. On top of that, using vinegar for pre and post-cleaning purposes will not make cat urine contamination worse than soap and bleach do. 

Is Hydrogen Peroxide Effective In Removing Cat Urine Odor?

Hydrogen Peroxide is helpful to get rid of cat urine odor. The cleaner works best on hardwood floors, but also tiles, concrete, and carpets. For best results, you can use hydrogen peroxide right after neutralizing the affected floor area with a solution of vinegar and water. 

If you are dealing with a cat urine issue on your concrete floor, or even on clothes, it’s better to use hydrogen peroxide rather than bleach. General household bleach contains chlorine, which works as its primary disinfectant constituent. Hydrogen peroxide has been proven to be about 30% more oxidizing than chlorine according to scientific research. Therefore, hydrogen peroxide is more efficient than bleach in terms of eliminating bacteria, stains, and odors produced by cat urine.   

Does Concrete Absorb Smell? 

Concrete does absorb a lot of smell. It can even smell in cases when the concrete floor is sealed and made resistant to most of the moisture absorption. Therefore, getting rid of any kind of smell stuck inside a concrete floor is a much harder job as compared to eliminating stains. 

But luckily enough, these smells can be driven out if the correct procedure is followed. Also, good-quality enzymatic or ionic cleaners are highly efficient in eliminating various kinds of odors.  

Final Remark:

If you have a pet, dealing with its urine in various parts of the house is perhaps one of the most common difficulties for you. Cat urine and concrete floor are specifically a combination that can get far more troublesome as compared to other things. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that this problem is beyond remedy. With the right knowledge and the right ingredients, it’s just like any other tiny issue that you solve on a day-to-day basis. Hopefully, this article provided you with the most crucial information, tips, and tricks about how to clean cat urine off concrete floors.