Don’t let your grease trap trap you! Your kitchen is one of the most critical parts of your business if you provide food services. Are you safeguarding your kitchen by maintaining one of its most important tools?

Grease traps in restaurants, hotels, and other establishments with commercial kitchens can be trouble-free guardians helping you to avoid expensive problems -- but they need to be properly maintained!
Proper preventive maintenance helps you avoid:

• Kitchen sewer backups.
• Sewage on your kitchen floor.
• Nasty odors that can cause customers to complain – or even leave.
• Emergency plumbing repairs. Kitchen down time.
• Possible fines and kitchen closures by the health department.
• Clogging city sewer lines which you may be billed to repair. All of these cost you valuable time, money, and possibly, customers. Simple preventive maintenance is the solution for all these problems.

Sewer Pumping Services can help!

Grease traps need to be pumped and cleaned on a regular basis or trouble is almost assured. Some of our specialties are grease trap pumping, cleaning and line jetting.

Most food service establishments should have their grease trap pumped and cleaned on a regular schedule. This could be once a week for high volume businesses, to a more common schedule of once every two or three months. Line jetting can be just as important and we do that at no charge if you choose to join our free Maintenance Management Plan.

With our Maintenance Management Plan we will work with you to analyze your particular situation and establish a schedule for grease trap pumping and jetting based on your needs.

Call us today to learn more about how we can make sure your grease trap does not trap you! 952-873-3292

Ten Important Features That Make Us Stand Out

1. We have a Guaranteed Maintenance Plan for your peace of mind -- At no extra charge, we'll create a management program for your grease trap preventive maintenance with our GUARANTEE that we will come out and pump the trap or clean the lines at no charge if there happens to be a problem between regular scheduled maintenance! We'll be out within 12 hours at NO CHARGE!
2. We also will be out within 12 hours to handle any issue with the products we service.
3. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
4. We are licensed, bonded and insured.
5. We dispose of all of our waste legally. You won't ever see us dumping waste in ditches in the middle of the night.
6. We offer a manifest. Many businesses don't realize that they are legally responsible for the activities of their grease removal contractors. Using a reputable provider who disposes of waste responsibly -- and legally -- is important for you. A record of grease cleaning, removal, and proper disposal is required by law. Failure to do this may result in hefty fines for the restaurant management.
7. Our prices are often lower than our competitors.
8. We follow up to make sure you are completely satisfied with our work.
9. We have six people in our office and answer our phones all day or return your call usually within 20 minutes. We are even available 24 hours a day! You don't ever have to worry about getting a hold of us in a time of need!
10. We have 8 trucks in the area! That means we have the manpower and resources to get to your location quickly if you have an emergency! We are one of the largest Grease Trap / Drain Jetting / Sewer Specialists / Septic Pumpers in the state. This means we are stable, reliable, and always available to get to your location when you need us.

 

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Frequently Asked Questions About Grease Traps

• What is a grease trap?
• Why do I need a grease trap?
• What is FOG?
• What can I do to make my grease trap more efficient?
• What is line jetting?
• My drains are working fine and I have never cleaned my grease trap. Why do I need preventive maintenance?
• We don’t cook the kinds of foods that create grease. Do we need a grease trap, or grease trap maintenance?

What is a grease trap?
A grease trap, sometimes called a grease interceptor, is a container that might sit on the floor under your kitchen rinse sink, or be installed in the floor, or may be a very large container buried in your parking lot.

A grease trap removes FOG (fats, oils and grease) and solids from the water leaving a commercial kitchen. It allows separation of FOG from the water, resulting in cleaner water leaving the trap, preventing grease and solids from entering the sewer line and causing problems.

These traps help prevent blockages that can result in sewage backups, nasty odors and expensive cleanups and repairs that can actually shut down your kitchen.

The tank of the grease trap allows a simple yet effective process to occur. Water flows from your sink into the tank where oils and grease separate from the water rather quickly and form a layer on top of the water. (Grease is less dense than water so it floats). Solids fall to the bottom of the tank. The relatively clean water in the middle layer then moves out of the tank into the sewer line.

If not maintained properly, the FOG can clog the intake of the trap, which causes odors and backups. Or it can exit the trap with the water from the middle layer, causing clogs further down the line.

Why do I need a grease trap?
Most foodservice establishments that introduce FOG into the wastewater stream are better off with a grease trap for their own sewer line protection if for no other reason. Establishments that introduce a negligible amount of FOG may not need one, but the majority of commercial kitchens do. Even coffee houses that don’t cook foods but use dairy products probably need a grease trap. Most cities and municipalities now require them by law for any food service establishment because FOG has become such a large problem clogging city sewer lines. If your kitchen is determined to have caused city sewer problems you may be billed for the repairs and possibly fined.

What is FOG?
It is an acronym for fats, oils, and grease. One of the worst problems in kitchens is FOG building up in the drainage lines. Fog enters the wastewater stream from grease and oil being poured down the drain, food being scraped down the drain, and the washing and rinsing of pots, pans, dishes and utensils.

What can I do to make my grease trap more efficient?
Helping your grease trap do its job is easy and saves you money by requiring fewer pumpings and cleanings. Here are some things you can do.

• Scrape food residue and grease (from the grill for instance) into trash cans, not down the drain.
• Don’t pour used cooking oil down the drain. Store used deep fryer oil in a proper container for recycling, dispose of other oils and greases properly in the trash. Mixing liquids with kitty litter is a good way to solidify them somewhat before discarding them.
• Have your grease trap, and associated lines, pumped and cleaned on a regular schedule. A grease trap can become overwhelmed without regular maintenance, reducing its efficiency, or causing it to fail completely.
  

What is line jetting?
All pipes leading to and from a grease trap eventually start clogging up with FOG – much like cholesterol in a human artery.
Line jetters are drain snakes on steroids. A jetter uses high pressure water to clean pipes instead of a blade of some sort that an auger (snake) uses.

The water removes debris and scrubs the entire inside of pipes with high pressure jets, where an auger can usually only drill a hole through blockage. Sometimes augers are still necessary, but jetting is usually the preferred method of cleaning lines and preventing early re-occurrence of debris.

Just like grease trap pumping and cleaning, line jetting can be a repair procedure, but better yet, is an effective preventive measure to keep lines open and functioning properly.

My drains are working fine and I have never cleaned my grease trap. Why do I need preventive maintenance?
Your drains may be working fine (for now), but it’s a pretty sure bet that your grease trap is in total failure mode if it has not been pumped and cleaned in a long time. It is probably completely malfunctioning and fats, oils, grease and food are exiting your grease trap as though there was no grease trap at all.

FOG is suspended in warm water and can easily slip through a malfunctioning grease trap that is not slowing down the flow of water long enough to cool the grease. If it doesn’t cool, it doesn’t solidify and form a layer at the top, which gets blocked in a properly functioning trap. Or it could just be passing through a completely clogged grease trap that is helpless to stop anything.

If not stopped in the grease trap, FOG will eventually cool further down the line and begin to build up a sticky residue inside the pipe. It will eventually completely clog it and cause a total drain stoppage. This will cause a backup into your kitchen at the worst possible time. It will probably be a catastrophe that may completely shut down your kitchen while you wait for emergency repairs! Some restaurants that have experienced sewer backups have been shut down for days by the health department while they completely cleaned and sanitized their kitchen.

Imagine the price of lost income while your kitchen has backed up sewage covering the floor, emergency service bills, possible fines, and the embarrassment of being shut down by the health department.

Potential sewer backup is a ticking time bomb that should not be ignored by any food service establishment that produces FOG and is not doing timely preventive maintenance.

We don’t cook the kinds of foods that create grease. Do we need a grease trap, or grease trap maintenance?
Some people believe that fats, oil and grease are the only culprits. Problems can also occur from dairy, fish, meat grinders, and even bread dough.