Have you ever gone through potty training a pet? Did your previous homeowner or tenant leave you with foul smelling urine stains?
Urine is comprised of three substances.
- Urea (sticky substance)
- Urochrome (produces urine’s yellow color)
- Uric Acid (produces urine’s smell)
Traditional cleaners can only remove the urea and urochrome, but not the uric acid that produces urine’s foul odor. Instead these cleaners utilize a masking agent to cover up the smell, which doesn’t last for forever. Plus, if the stain absorbes into your hardwood floors, the uric acid crystals will start to burn/break down your wood floors. Urine Off’s enzymes effectively remove the urea, urochrome and the uric acid!
Below we have detailed the steps you will need to take to locate and remove urine stains. For stains on hardwood floors you will need follow an additional set of steps detailed at the end of the article.
Step 1: Locate the urine Stain
Urine Off sells a UV black light that enables you to quickly locate urine stains. Unlike most low end store black lights, Urine Off’s UV black light is specifically designed to emit the proper wavelengths that are necessary to easily detect urine stains. While Urine Off’s UV Black Light only emits a small amounts of UV light, they do recommend that you wear a pair of UV glasses to protect your eyes against harmful UV rays. (FYI- most sunglasses have UV protection).
Step 2: Removing the Stain
The age, penetration of the stain and whether other cleaners have been used will affect your results. Therfore, more than one application of Urine Off may be necessary to completely remove the stain. Urine Off must contact every part of the urine stain, so that it’s enzymes can do their job. For this reason, Urine Off recommends that you liberally apply their product. Generally speaking the more absorbent the material, the more Urine off will be needed. In some cases, a second application may be necessary.
Application Tips
If other cleaning products were used at some point to try to eliminate the pet stain, Urine Off recommends flushing these fabrics or carpets with water. This will dilute any leftover cleaning solution that could adversely effect Urine Off’s performance.
Sometimes stains can work their way down into the carpets padding and subfloor. As a result, it can make it much more difficult to remove the urine stain. In this case, Urine Off suggest applying their product at a heavier rate to make sure it’s product comes into contact with all parts of the stain. If it’s possible, pull the carpet and foam padding up to make it easier to saturate the whole stain.
If applying to a delicate fabric, test an inconspicuous area before applying to the whole area. In most cases, Urine Off is non staining, but it’s always best to test first!
Removing Urine Stains from Hardwood Floors
If a urine stain is left untreated, the uric acid crystals can start to burn the fibers of your wood floors. This burning action will turn those spots blackish. Urine Off can stop the burning process, but it cannot remove the blackish stain, because the wood has been permanently stained. As long as the stain is not too deep you will be able to sand away the burned area after removing the uric acid crystals (step 7 and 8 cover this).
Step 1: Apply Urine Off and cover with plastic wrap for 30 minutes. This combination will start to pull the stain to the surface.
Step 2: Pull the plastic wrap up and wipe the floor with a paper towel.
Step 3: Apply Urine Off again, but do not cover with plastic. Let it stand for 30 minutes.
Step 4: Repeat step 3
Step 5: Repeat step 3
Step 6: By now the odor should be gone and the floor should be much lighter. If it is not, continue repeating step 3 until the desired result is achieved.
Step 7: Sand the stained area with a piece of steel wool to remove the remaining black staining.
Step 8: If the stain was too deep, steel wool may not be abrasive enough. In this case you will need to use sand paper or an electric sander.
