Grease trap cleaning on Long Island

Grease floats. In a trap, it rises and collects while the water underneath flows on, and food solids sink to the bottom. As the grease layer thickens and the solids build up, the trap has less room to work, and grease begins to leave with the water. Once it reaches the pipes downstream it cools, hardens and narrows the line.

Emptying the trap before that point is far simpler than clearing grease-packed lines after a backup.

We open the trap or interceptor and pump out everything in it: the grease layer on top, the water and the solids that settled at the bottom. The waste is hauled away for proper disposal.

With the trap empty, the technician can look at the baffles, inlet and outlet and let you know if anything is damaged or blocked. We also tell you how full the trap was, which is the most useful guide to how often it should be cleaned.

There is no single interval that fits every kitchen. Trap size, menu, fryer use, hours and seasonal business all change how fast grease builds up. A busy kitchen running fryers all day fills a trap much faster than a bakery or café.

We set up scheduled grease trap cleaning based on how quickly your trap actually fills, and revisit the schedule if your menu or hours change. Visits can be arranged around service hours where possible so the kitchen isn’t interrupted. Your town or sewer district may also set its own requirements.

Suffolk County’s Department of Health Services standards for systems other than single-family homes require every restaurant and food preparation establishment to have a grease trap for its kitchen. The county treats the trap as part of the equipment needed for a food establishment permit.

Under those standards, the trap sits below grade outside the building, ahead of the septic tank or sewer line, receives only kitchen discharges and must be easy to reach for inspection and maintenance. New traps must hold at least 1,500 gallons. The same standards say grease traps should be cleaned and maintained regularly.

For a business on a cesspool or septic system, grease that slips past the trap ends up in that system, where it can seal the leaching structure and keep water from soaking into the soil. Keeping the trap clean protects the whole system, and we can coordinate grease trap visits with cesspool and septic pumping.

On a public sewer, escaped grease tends to clog the building’s main line or its connection to the street. Either way, if grease has already moved past the trap, we can clear the lines with hydro jetting.

JET cleans grease traps for restaurants, pizzerias, delis, fast food restaurants, bakeries, cafeterias, hotels, catering kitchens and supermarket kitchens. For the rest of a business’s wastewater system, see commercial cesspool services.