Superior Plumbing & Heating works closely with restaurants, cafes, and fast-food outlets. We service public catering kitchens, helping them to work non-stop and avoid any possible plumbing troubles that frequently happen with this kind of business. And among these problems, one of the most common is grease trap clogging.

Public catering kitchen sinks and drains deal with an increased amount of grease essence, compared to residential kitchens. For operation convenience, the restaurant drains are equipped with special grease traps that allow kitchen employees to send fats and oils straight to the trap after cooking.

Regular residential kitchen drain can not handle such amount of grease essence to pass through it. That’s why in commercial kitchens, the grease trap is separating the wastewater into two fractions. The liquid fraction that poses no harm to the drain outcome line passes through, and the solid one (concentrated oils and fats) floats on the top, waiting to be pumped out of the trap. The grease trap design is somewhat similar to the design of a septic tank – both consist of two modules – the first one separates the waste, and the second one delivers liquids to the outline.

How to clear a clogged grease trap?

A grease trap requires systematic cleaning that mostly considers pumping up the solid floating waste from the first module of the trap. If that process is carried out correctly and timely, the probability of trap cloggings tends to zero.

In cases when trap cleaning was neglected or when your grease trap pass-through capability was outstripped, it can be clogged with the sticky oil substances. You can detect the trap clogging by the following signs:

  • Backups and overflows;
  • The foul smell of burnt oil coming out of the drain or sinks;
  • Slow drain;

If you suspect your grease trap is clogged, the first thing to do is determine the cause of the blockage. The problem may lie in one of the sectors:

  • Inlet line (sometimes grease traps can be blocked by the foreign object, dropped in a drain);
  • The grease trap itself;
  • Outlet drain pipe.

To detect the problem, qualified help is required. No matter what the symptoms are – you should not try fixing your grease trap by yourself. Do not pour household chemical degreasers like Drano into your drain cause it may only perplex the problem solving afterward. And you definitely shall not try to remove the clog in the grease trap manually – the only way to do it is by employing professional equipment and acknowledging a technique of performing such manipulations. In case you have faced any of the problems mentioned above – you better call out the experienced team of commercial plumbers that have your grease trap system at their fingertips.

Superior Plumbing & Heating is here to help your restaurant with grease troubles in no time!