How to Clean a Home Kitchen Grease Trap?

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How to Clean a Home Kitchen Grease Trap?

When people think of a grease trap or cleaning a grease trap, they typically think of a commercial facility like a restaurant or a food processing plant. Well this article is intended to help the homeowners who have a residential kitchen grease trap with some general information. It will offer some tips on how to clean kitchen grease trap, how to treat and maintain a kitchen grease trap maximizing grease trap efficiency and ensuring a problem free system.

Residential homeowners can legally use the kitchen sink drain to dispose of grease into the local city sewer system. This has not always been the case. At one time it was illegal to dump grease down the sink depositing it into the city sewer.

With the invention of the garbage disposal, grease levels began to increase with noticeable accumulations in sewer pipes requiring additional treatments and cost of operation for the city sewage stations. In some municipalities, there were several attempts to outlaw the use of garbage disposals without success. Don’t be surprised if some day in the future it is mandatory for all homes to remove the garbage disposal and install grease traps.

If you are a homeowner with a grease trap you will need to service the system on a regular basis. If you neglect your grease trap, stagnant, fowl grease trap odors will fill your kitchen and home. Most septic tank pumping companies will provide this service at a cost of $75.00 - $200.00 per pump out or consider completing the task yourself.

Cleaning a grease trap will take on a whole new perspective when considering the pros and cons of maintaining your residential grease trap. Probably the worst complaint is the odors grease traps produce. The easiest way to treat a grease trap is to invest in a beneficial bacterial treatment. Beneficial bacterial grease trap treatments have the ability to digest odors, fats, grease and oils, reducing them to water and carbon dioxide. Just a few ounces of bacterial enzyme grease trap treatment every month or so will eliminate odors and the need to clean out your grease trap. In addition to servicing a grease trap, bacteria will clean out drain lines; remove grease build up reducing service call saving homeowners expensive house calls. Bacterial treatments will also ad beneficial bacteria to homeowners with septic tank and drain fields helping to maintain the drain fields digesting bio mat restoring the drain field to a like new condition over time.

Cleaning out a grease trap by hand is a job most people would rather leave to the professionals. Depending on the type of residential grease trap you have will determine the best plan of action. Generally, most grease traps are accessed from the top. To clean a grease trap the cover most first be removed and it is basically an open box with a partition down the middle separating the grease from the waste water. You will need a bucket and a scoop suitable for dipping the grease from the grease trap. The inside of the tank then be flushed with hot water in an attempt to dilute the grease. The grease trap must then be wiped out with paper towels or some other suitable material.

Beneficial bacteria grease trap treatments are by far the best way to treat a grease trap. There is little involvement required by the home owner. The bacterial treatments have an additional advantage in that they also help with digesting fat, oils and greases in drain lines and reducing bio mat build up in the septic tank drain fields of homes locater in rural areas with no access to city sewer systems.

By: Bradley Skierkowski