Getting driveway sealcoat off carpet

In preparation for listing my house for sale (I need a bigger garage...), I've spent a good bit of time cleaning it and fixing things up. One of the last things done, largely because of the weather, was having the driveway sealcoated. A few hours after that was done, my realtor came by to take pictures of everything and get paperwork signed- and she proceeded to step into a puddle of sealcoat just off the driveway and before I noticed this had walked across the entryway and part of the living room carpet, leaving nice black tar shoe-prints in the recently Chem-Dry cleaned white carpet.

So, now I have to figure out how to get it out/off. She is of course paying for anything that is done, but of course does NOT want to have to replace some 400sqft of carpet if possible. I have Chem-Dry coming back tomorrow morning to take a crack at it- but am not very optimistic about their probability of success.

Have any of you encountered this problem before? And if so, did you succeed in getting it out of the carpet and how? Thanks!

Erm, you might be fooked. Generally speaking, if a product is designed to remove petroleum based stains (oil, tar, etc) you're going to run the risk of damaging the carpet as that is also petroleum based.... nylon and whatnot. I'd say give it a go, but it sounds like ye olde realtor's gonna be on the hook for a patch of berber.

Other than cutting it off the top, I got nothin'.

I always remove my shoes at other folks houses. A considerate realtor would have a pocket full of surgical booties - my Comcast guy always puts those on.

I guess E36 M3 happens.

The best tar remover that I use on cars is WD40. At this point you have nothing to loose, try a little on a rag and see what happens. If you can get it to come off then you will have to get the WD40 off.

You're probably screwed.

okay, I used to run an asphalt plant, and I'm a chemist now for a household cleaning chemicals company, so...

You may very well be screwed. The biggest problem is that anything aggressive enough to dissolve the tar will also probably stain the carpet. When cleaning carpet, your biggest worry is turning a spot into a stain - that is, driving dirt that is sitting on the surface of the fibers into the fiber itself where you will never get it out. Given the nature of tar, you're pretty much guaranteed that will happen to some degree.

Having said that, your best bet is first to dissolve the tar and then use a wet extraction (pro cleaning) rig to get the solvent and dissolved chemical out as best you can.

You need cleaning solvent with the chemical d-limonene in it. d-limonene is commonly known as orange oil - it is a relative of turpentine that is pressed from orange peels. the best retail cleaner that is a high percentage d-limonene is probably Goof Off, available at most hardware stores. Be careful, the stuff is flammable in pure or high concentrations. You want to soak the tar and wick up as much of the tar as possible without grinding it back into the fiber. If you can avoid soaking the carpet, it's a good thing.

d-limonene won't dissolve nylon carpet in my experience, but some other fibers ( and some backings) are affected. Test in an inconspicuous area for sure.

Finish with some mad wet/steam extraction by a pro, truck mounted rig and you might have a chance.

best of luck.

get new carpet?

EricM wrote: get new carpet?

This, and have the agent cut her commission to cover the cost!

ice?

Well, I now have the answer to my question- and that answer is, "Call Chem-Dry and hand your realtor the $80 bill for cleaning the carpet."

Before (taken right after it happened):

After Chem-Dry worked on it for an hour:

I was honestly shocked they were able to get it completely out- I can't tell at all where the sealcoat was now. Best $80 I ever handed the bill to someone else for!

All those replies and no mention of a hootus? You folks are slipping.

Impressive work by Chem-Dry. I assume that from now on your Realtor will be very accomodating.

One of my kids left a ball of silly putty on the carpet. Silly putty, as you may know, is a highly viscous liquid. By the time I found it, it was one with the carpet.

Internet search to the rescue. Lots of parents have been here before. Two contenders emerged: WD-40 and Isopropyl alcohol.

I think WD-40 stinks, as in literally, and I would never choose to use it in the house if I can help it. Also, I have something of a predisposition to alcohol, so that's where I went.

After removing some of the silly putty with a hot iron over an absorbent towel, I rubbed alcohol into the stain and worked it with a dry towel. The alcohol did a good job of dissolving the stuff, and in just a couple minutes, I couldn't tell where it had been.

Not sure if alcohol works on driveway sealer, but I might have given it a shot.

Glad you had success with the pros.

1988RedT2 wrote: I think WD-40 stinks, as in literally, and I would never choose to use it in the house if I can help it.

Early in my office career I had a pair of penny loafers that squeaked - so I figure one morning I will spray some WD40 onto the bottom leather hoping it will soak in and match up with the steel shank that was rubbing and making noise.

I'm in a meeting in the anal boss ladies office, she stops the meeting and asks if anybody smells oil; I act stupid and pretend not to smell a thing even though it did reek of WD40. So when I smell WD40 I instantly remember being called out on my shoe fix.

Wow, I'm impressed, that looks much nicer than it was last time I was down there. The first round of cleaning must have been pretty effective.

eastsidemav wrote: Wow, I'm impressed, that looks much nicer than it was last time I was down there. The first round of cleaning must have been pretty effective.

It was, very definitely. Jeana had used her little carpet cleaner on the living room carpet and it helped, but I was very certain that when I'd had Chem-Dry out the previous time I'd listed the house (much less seriously) that they'd gotten the carpet to almost-new condition so called them up again and ate the $200 for them cleaning the carpets- and it was well worth it. Sure, it doesn't look like it's brand new- they can't do anything about the fibers in high-traffic areas being worn down- but it looks infinitely better than it started or what the little consumer-grade carpet cleaner could do. And the first round of cleaning didn't use their heaviest guns- getting the sealcoat off took one step higher, but they couldn't use the biggest machine because the power in my house wasn't stable enough to not trip the internal breaker on the machine.