Grease Traps and why you need them!

Grease traps are essential to plumbing performance!

Grease traps are often known about in the commercial field of plumbing however they are usually not understood fully. Yes they do trap grease as the name well suggests. The big misunderstanding is that they trap this grease without ever needing maintenance or cleaning. This is the big problem amongst most commercial property owners.

A grease trap is designed to hold a given amount of grease or food debris. Each trap is sized according to the fixture or fixtures it serves as per plumbing code or other authorities. When a grease trap reaches its capacity due to normal usage then it needs cleaned of all food and grease debris so it can function properly. If this cleaning is not performed on a regular basis then the grease trap ceases to perform properly and lets the grease go into the plumbing piping which is what we intended to stop by adding a grease trap in the first place.

Like I said before this is a common misunderstanding in the commercial field of plumbing maintenance. As a plumbing professional I see this happen all the time especially in a restaurant setting. I receive calls for clogged drains only to find that a grease trap has not been maintained properly by regular cleaning and has caused a back up due to grease in the lines downstream of the grease trap. Now the bad news comes.

plumbing companyuse a hot water jetter to clean the grease out of the drain lines. This perplexes most people who think that they don’t have large amounts of grease in the everyday use of their facility. It is really simple to determine whether you have enough grease going down your drains to cause the problems you are facing. You called a plumbing company because you have a clogged drain didn’t you?

You would be surprised to hear how many times I have explained this in more than a nice way that this is the problem and yet the management still calls us to clean out the drains over and over again costing them more in the long run than it would cost to just clean out the grease trap when it needs it on a routine basis. I don’t mean to rant but this seems like a no brainer to me! If you want to pay us to keep cleaning the drains because you can’t maintain a cleaning program well then bring it on. We love customers like you.

I guess I shouldn’t seem like I’m complaining but it boggles my mind how someone can be given a professional opinion on something and experience it over and over again and expect different results!

For the best overall results call a Cincinnati Plumber at (513) 383-4242

As Always, Why be Wrong…….When you can Flow-Rite!