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How Often Does A Grease Trap Need To Be Cleaned

The successful working of your restaurant depends on many factors; the taste of the food, the customer service, and how efficient your kitchen system is. The efficiency of your kitchen is directly proportional to the working of the grease trap. Yes!! The small insignificant grease trap. Imagine washing the food items, plates, utensils, and other items in the sink which is continuously overflowing, getting water blockage, draining slowly, and giving out a putrid smell. What do these signs mean? It means that your grease trap needs to be cleaned by a commercial drain cleaning service because it is full.

What Is A Grease Trap?

A grease trap is a trap in the restaurants which captures grease from all the food debris and the dirty plates and crockery. It needs to be cleaned from time to time or else the sink will produce grease due to the grease trap being full of grease. It will hinder and slow down your efficient working of the kitchen.

When Should You Clean The Grease Trap?

The time of the regular grease trap cleaning is dependent on the size of the restaurant, the number of customers on a daily basis, the amount of food cooked, the seating arrangement, the number of hours the restaurant runs, the size of the grease trap and the cooking techniques. Due to these reasons, restaurants are unable to keep track of the time of the cleaning of the grease trap. They get to know when unpleasant odors arise from drains or the working of the drainage system becomes slow. But then the situation is worsened and you need to call in the professionals to clean the grease trap.

The one/fourth rule

The 1/4th rule should be applied to the grease trap. Now this can be done in 2 ways:

One/fourth time period in a year

This means that the grease trap should be cleaned 4 times a year, after every 3 months. This way you will remember to clean the grease trap when the month comes. But this cannot be applied if you have a small grease trap or your kitchen sink is producing a lot of grease. In this case, clean the grease trap every second month or better yet on a monthly basis.

One/fourth filling of the grease in the grease trap

Check your grease trap regularly and clean it when it becomes 1/4th full of grease.

Government Rules

There are different rules and regulations provided by the state, the government, or the authorities of the respective state regarding the cleaning of the grease trap. You will need to check the rules with your local authorities. If you do not follow the rule, then you could be penalized or fined for breaking the law.

Why Is It Important To Clean The Grease Trap?

If the grease trap is not maintained or regularly cleans then it could lead to many problems:

  • The trapped grease leads to slow water drainage and blockage which tends to increase with time. This also leads to reverse water. Over time this could become bad news and you will need to stop your work and call in an expert to fix and repair it. This means a loss in business and extra costs.
  • The trapped grease and solids cause a foul odor which can be nasty and also reach your customers. Again, loss of business.
  • The trapped grease and food debris eventually turn into chemical compounds which when broken down produce hydrogen sulfur gas and convert it into sulfuric acid. This acid can damage the steel components of the grease trapping machine. If the components become damaged then it can get really expensive to replace the whole system.
  • When you do not empty or clean the grease trap, it tends to increase with time and also solidifies and converts into a thick hard mass. This can get stuck at the base of the grease trap. It can get difficult to clean and extract when you finally get down to cleaning.

Conclusion

If you want your business to run smoothly and efficiently and your customers to be content with the quality, then it is necessary to keep your grease trap clean. You can find grease trap cleaning NYC services that clean it efficiently.

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