Grease Trap Cleaning: How Often Should You Clean Your Grease Trap?
GREASE TRAP CLEANING: HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU CLEAN YOUR GREASE TRAP?
When it comes to grease trap cleaning, how often should it be addressed? Here’s your guide to cleaning your restaurant’s grease trap.
More than 8,000 restaurants have structure fires each year that total $247 million in property damage. The biggest culprit for the cause of these fires? It’s the grease traps.
Every restaurant should practice regular grease trap cleaning. That way you keep the number of FOGS (fats, oils, grease, and solids) down.
Unfortunately, this is one of those chores that often gets forgotten or skipped. Use this guide to create the right grease trap cleaning plan for your restaurant.
Use the One Quarter Rule
Keep an eye on your grease trap, and when it is a quarter of the way full, it is time to clean it out. The reason for this is because, at this point, the trap becomes no longer effective.
So instead of the trap catching the grease and oil, it will escape into the pipes. Now you dramatically increase the chance of overflows and blockages.
When you have these leakages happen, you greatly increase the risk of fire and food contamination.
Create a Maintenance Cycle
How often you need to clean your grease trap will depend on the size of your trap and the volume of grease your cooking produces. On average though, they need cleaning between one and three months.
Regularly check your grease trap so you can learn how quickly it fills up. Then you can create a cleaning schedule based on that timeline.
If you find that your grease trap fills up and needs cleaning in less than a month, then it’s time to upgrade your grease trap to a larger one.
Know the Law
If you decide to skip cleaning or to get rid of the grease trap totally, then you could be in hot water with the state or county. You can receive large fines or even have your restaurant closed down.
If you are unsure of the laws that could affect you, it is best to consult a professional cleaning service. They can explain the details of the laws and help you create a cleaning maintenance plan that will comply.
Prevent the Problem
There are ways you can reduce the grease trap from filling up quickly. Have your staff scrape everything. That means cleaning off the FOGS from the plates and cookware before you wash it.
Instead of depending on yourself and your staff to clean the grease trap, hire a professional service. This ensures that the trap is cleaned on a consistent basis.
Finally, plan for the unexpected. Do you know that your business volume substantially increases during certain months? If so, then you need to work with your cleaner to ensure your trap stays clean by scheduling extra cleaning during this time.
Do Your Grease Trap Cleaning
By practicing consistent grease trap cleaning and staying in compliance with the law you reduce the number of headaches you have to deal with. So hire a professional cleaning and check this gross cleaning task off of your to-do list.
Contact us today and have Smart Alternative Fuels clean your grease traps in California, Washington, Oregon, and Western Nevada.