New Jersey Grease Trap Cleaning

Restaurants in New Jersey often find themselves weighed down with safety and EPA regulations. Among these is grease trap maintenance. Establishments with commercial kitchens must maintain them to prevent back-ups and grease blockages. The Department of Health could end up shutting your restaurant down if you fail to show cleanliness in your restaurant. Fortunately, Action Plumbing is ready to help conduct New Jersey grease trap cleaning throughout the state.

What is a Grease Trap?

Grease traps are in place to collect grease in wastewater. It lessens the chance of your system backing up or blockages occurring. Many New Jersey restaurant owners that simply pouring Draino down their pipes will do the trick. However, this is not the case. You can certainly clean them out by yourselves, but necessary steps need to be taken and followed precisely to prevent back-ups.

When it is not maintained properly, grease waste will enter the sewer line or septic system. It’s easy to essential destroy a restaurant in a matter of minutes. Your restaurant will need to be properly sanitized before serving the public again – which can mean up to 2 days of lost business.

Where to Find Your Grease Trap

If your New Jersey commercial kitchen has a basement, you might be able to locate your trap there. Otherwise, in most cases, it can be found on the outside of the building near the kitchen’s dishwashing station. It looks like a manhole or septic tank cover.

How to Clean Your Grease Trap

Although it is highly recommended to seek the help of a professional to clean out and maintain your grease trap in your New Jersey restaurant – you can certainly do it yourself. You should set a schedule to prevent any backups or blockages. This will help keep your restaurant running safely and efficiently.

Be sure to wait until the end of the business day or early morning before the start of business to clean up. Your restaurant will need to be free of any customers and your equipment will need to be shut down and properly cleaned before you start.

1. Begin by removing the lid on your grease trap. Be sure to do this gently so you don’t cause any damage to the gaskets on the lid.
2. Place a ruler inside the trap to note how many inches of grease is inside the trap. Be sure to write this down in a FOG report. If you don’t have a FOG report, you can obtain this from the EPA.
3. Next, you will need to remove all of the water form your grease trap. You can do this by using a bucket or pump. This water will need to be set aside.
4. Then you will need to scoop out all of the grease that is located inside the trap and on the lid. You will also need to scrape the bottom and sides to remove any excess.
5. Scrub all of the parts you have removed and flush out the screen.
6. Now you are able to pour all the water you had collected before backing into the trap.
7. Lastly, reinstall and parts you may have removed in earlier steps and carefully replace the lid.

Why New Jersey Grease Trap Cleaning is Important?

If your business is not compliant with your municipality’s health codes, they have the legal authority to shut your business down. Surely you could consult New Jersey grease trap cleaning experts such as Action Plumbing to fix the problem. However, the long term damage to your reputation may not be worth putting it off. This is why it is important to have regularly scheduled commercial plumbing done to your business.

How to Tell When it is Time to Replace

In the case your local New Jersey municipality notifies you of an upcoming inspection due to leak in the local water system, you should certainly look into replacing your trap. However, you should follow a necessary maintenance schedule to prevent your trap from getting this bad. You may also want to replace your trap if you find you are often getting backups or it stops filtering grease out of your water altogether.

Need cleaning or replacement of your grease trap in your New Jersey restaurant? Contact Action Plumbing at 1-800-ACTION-24 for all of your plumbing needs.