Reduce Grease Trap Pumping In Your Retirement Community

As a maintenance supervisor of a retirement community, you have your hands full every day with a number of things on your to-do list. From overseeing and coordinating workers who look after and repair plumbing, electrical, ventilation and other building systems in your retirement community, to looking into problematic systems and determining the best installation or repair solutions for them, you need to do it all – day after day.

Most problems require immediate attention and resolutions to ensure that your retirement community functions smoothly without disturbing its residents.

Scheduling the grease trap pumping in your retirement community can be a big hurdle. By now you may have already estimated how often they need to be cleaned to ensure everything is in order for your commercial kitchen. This can be quite expensive, and contacting and following up with a company that offers these services every month is not something you want to be stuck doing all the time.

Even if you get the grease traps pumped regularly, you’ll eventually be faced with a number of common problems that can prevent the grease traps from working effectively. But before we talk about all the problems, you first need to understand how normal grease traps function and why an alternative solution can solve the grease traps problem for good.

How Do Grease Traps Work?

Typically, the grease trap is located between the drain and the municipal sewer system. The water enters the trap via something called as a diverter or a flow regulator. This prevents water from flooding the trap. It also circumvents mixing of debris and fats, oil and grease that the trap is working so hard to separate.

Once the water is in the trap it begins to cool. The cooling helps the fats, oil, and grease to harden. As a result, these elements float to the top because they are less dense than water and the food debris sinks to the bottom of the trap. This process leaves a middle layer of clean water that is safe to release into the sewer system.

The middle layer of water passes through another compartment in the trap. It is separated from the first one with a crossover pipe. Any grease that happens to make it through the first compartment rises to the surface. The clean water is then discharged through an outlet pipe.

The debris and fats, oils and grease collected here are what need to be cleaned regularly to prevent overflowing of water and a huge mess.

Common Grease Trap Problems You May Encounter In Your Retirement Community

Clogs in the crossover pipe happen when fats, oil, grease and debris build up in the crossover pipe that is located between the two compartments. If the crossover pipe itself is clogged, it leads to the first compartment having way too much water than the second compartment. At this point, the level of water in the second compartment is normal, but the water in the first compartment might be overflowing and you may not be able to figure it out until it’s too late.

Clogs in your incoming line will cause the lowest plumbing fixture in the kitchen to back up. You’ll need to look for backed up floor drains for this issue. However, if the sink is backed up, then this suggests that the branch line to that fixture is clogged and not the grease trap incoming line. If you’re not an expert, it will be difficult to determine what could be the real issue here.

Clogs in the outgoing line are probably the worst that can happen in the retirement community kitchen. A clog in the outgoing line will lead to the overflowing of the grease trap from both the compartments. The clog can be anywhere – in the city main or in the line itself. If the waste hasn’t been pumped regularly, then in all likelihood, the clog in the main line could be your liability. So, disposing of wastewater is something that needs to be done like clockwork.

A full grease trap results from not cleaning as often as it should have, or at least not as efficiently. This will only happen when the fats, oil, and grease haven’t been removed from the first compartment. It will then lead to them spilling into the second compartment and clogging the crossover, incoming as well as outgoing lines. It can hamper the normal functioning of the kitchen, something that you definitely don’t want to tackle ever.

Undoubtedly, this is a ‘sticky’ position that you should never have to be in, especially when there is a cost-effective solution like The Drain Strainer™ out there.

While there are quite a few chemicals that can be used to clean the sink and other commercial garbage disposers to solve the grease trap issues, none of them really come close to what The Drain Strainer™ can do.

What is The Drain Strainer™ and Why Should You Invest in One?

The Drain Strainer™ is an affordable and effective solution for separating solid food and debris. It’s able to separate and catch the food waste from the water effectively, while still letting the sinks drain quickly. You can even have more than one sink connected to a single Drain Strainer™. No need to invest in multiple units. The stainless steel strainer drawer is where the food solids are collected. Simply ensure that this drawer is pulled out and emptied regularly.

It also comes with flanged feet that can be bolted to the floor for extra stability, as well as additional leg extensions that can fit comfortably under sinks of any height.

Retirement communities already have older adults who need extra care and attention. So, instead of focusing on getting the grease traps in order all the time, why not spend more time making the residents’ lives more pleasant and satisfying? The Drain Strainer™ is your solution to pump your grease traps less often.