Grease Trap Cleaning

A grease trap sits between your kitchen's drain lines and the municipal sewer. Every time a sink drains or a floor drain clears, the water passes through the trap, where fats, oils, and grease float to the surface while heavier solids settle to the bottom. The relatively clear middle layer moves on through. The trap holds the rest.

How grease traps fill

Grease does not move through the system the way liquid does. It accumulates, a layer at a time, on the surface of the trap. Solids build up from the bottom. When the combined depth of those two layers gets high enough to reach the inlet and outlet pipes, the trap stops separating effectively. FOG that would have been caught starts moving downstream, into the sewer, where it cools, hardens, and eventually blocks the line.

What cleaning involves

Cleaning the trap means pumping out everything inside, including the accumulated grease layer, the settled solids, and the liquid between them. The trap is then rinsed. A clean trap is one that can actually do its job at the next service rush. A trap that was emptied but not rinsed will re-coat faster the second time, because the residue left on the walls gives new grease a surface to bond to.

Service frequency

Commercial kitchens that generate heavy grease loads typically need cleaning more often than lighter-use operations. Restaurants, diners, cafeterias, food processing facilities, and any kitchen with commercial fryers fall into the higher-frequency category. The right interval depends on how much FOG the kitchen produces, the size of the trap, and what the local authority requires for documentation.