I am having trouble with the company I get to clean my grease trap. They bring in a vac truck and only suck out the center portion of tha trap. I had trouble with the trap overflowing so I called them back and they said to call a plumber. I called a plumber and they said have the trap cleaned. What’s a guy to do?
We went out a bought a large shop vac to do it ourselves. Well, I mean any employee that shows up for work late gets the honor of cleaning it.
Note: Store the shop vac “off site” as it becomes very aromatic very quickly.
Daddio;
While this doesn’t address your specific question, I thought I’d share this with you anyway as it might prove helpful to you in the future.
If you have a lot of dough going down your drains, buy some (protease tablets) from a bakery ingredient supplier. Dissolve a tablet in a quart of barely warm water and pour it down the drain when you lock-up. We do this every night. The protease will hydrolize (digest/break-down) the flour preteins preventing them from clogging the trap. If you have mostly vegetable matter going down the drain, buy a container of enzyme drain cleaner and septic system activater from your local hardware store. Put a tablespoon of this into a quart of warm water and pour down the drain at lock-up time. Do this every other night. Before we started doing this the stench would drive you out of the building when they took the lid off of the grease trap, now since we have been doing this the smell isn’t nearly as bad, in fact, you hardly even know when they’re cleaning the traps. As a side benefit, since we have been doing this, several years now, we have never had a clogged drain line.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
You mean I’m the only moron who’s ever stuck his HAND in a grease trap? Get some nice long latex, rubber, whatever gloves… have a double-bagged trash can close by. Toss the junk in there, get it out to the dumpster quickly, and forget about eating lunch :).
the lines that led to my greasetrap were so clogged, i had to get a plumber to take down all the pipes in my basement and rotorooter them all. the smell was horrendous. took 5 hours and problem solved.
To address the question a bit more, I’d first call the a**holes that you called the first time and tell them their driver needs to clean out THE WHOLE THING. You shouldn’t have to pay for it, by the way, but if they come out and do it right, you may want to for the sake of having a good relationship. That is the most ridiculous answer I’ve heard relative to grease traps.
On the other hand, maybe that company is so inbred that they have no sense, and you’d be better off calling a different honey wagon.
A shop vac does work very well…
I tried it your way the first time then had to replace my clothes (couldn’t get the smell out.) I put the junk into a 3 gal plastic oil pail then to the dumpster. the disposal driver was not happy when the pail bounced off the top of his truck and spilled down the window. But that was the last time for that crazyness.
How often do you clean yours?
That’s worth the price of admission right there 
Snowman;
Unless you have a much stronger stomach than me, forget about eating berakfast too. I’d suggest something light for dinner the night before too.
Like I said, this ain’t the smell of “sweet roses”.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Chech with your local plumbing codes. Many cities will have a schedule in their codes. I balieve that ours calls for cleaning twice a year.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Where i work the board of health inspector wants it clean once a month… i dont know why… but my brother in law has calls a company that cleans the grease trap and also they clean the pipes to prevent any overflowing… we are nothing but happy with that company… they do a great job for a decent price…
watch them clean it next time. they might not know the trap goes all the way down past the middle trap. have them scrap out the sides too. if this doesn’t get cleaned out it will only mean major problems for you later.
I just cleaned my grease trap for the first time. We have an above ground one so we disconnected the pipes and slide it outside to clean. We used 2 paper masks with vicks vapor rub in between them to deal with the smell. Didn’t go too bad. Not very hard to do yourself.
Not hard at all if you use scoops, a pressure washer and a shop vac. We do ours every few months now, and it is not a desireable task . . . though not attrocious. The grease people will charge me upwards of $200 to do mine, so I save that money doing it myself.
no your not.
Well, i don’t but my employees do every other month…
I just cleaned mine again this time I did it the smart way. I used a shop vac and steam cleaner and a pair of disposible coveralls. after the job was done the shop vac and the coveralls went into the dumpster. $40 dollars for the shop vac, $2 for the coveralls for a net savings of $80 and the job done right.
I suspect not. Idid it with gloves and an ice scopp the first few times. Decided that was not so much fun when it became more frequent. We clean out our shop vac, though 
We do ours about every other month. stopped using shop-vac ( although very quick), because cleaning shop-vac after took longer than cleaning trap. Now we just scoop out with pot and put in big ol’ grease drum. We rotate the job around employees. just don’t eat wings for a while. takes about 45 minutes.
I know it may sound stupid but how do you know when its time to clean…we installed it 3 yrs ago and have yet to do anything…figured if everything drains well in the 3 bay that it must be ok (not rushing to do the work if I dont have t)…am I missing something?
Thanks!