Grease traps prevent food and sludge from entering municipal waterways. Grease traps must be cleaned and serviced on a regular basis to maintain optimum efficiency. Every time we clean your grease trap we monitor the fog reading to ensure we stay at or below 24%, to meet both the industry standard and Louisiana’s regulations. Our regular grease trap maintenance keeps your trap flowing and the plumber away so you avoid backups, fines, shutdowns and damage to your restaurant.
Regular cleaning is essential, but we are here 24/7 if you need us.
We prevent clogs, backups, smelly traps and damage to your restaurant.
We help you stay in compliance with all regulations.
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Baton Rouge
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Lafayette
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New Orleans
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You’ve just spent $8000 installing a large outdoor grease trap during a 3 month process. You have permits, inspections, approvals, engineering diagrams and your grease trap is functioning. Time to close the trap and forget it? That would be an expensive mistake.
Maintaining your grease trap requires regular pumping of solids and fats, cleaning and inspecting for damaged parts. This should be done by your grease trap pumping provider, someone who does this everyday.
ReBirth Biofuels will check the functioning of your grease trap, pump it out, clean it and insure you have all of the records required when your local inspector pays a visit. Failing an inspection can be costly. Rebirth will ensure that doesn’t happen.
It’s possible to do it yourself, but it is generally better to leave that to someone who does it everyday. Besides, do you have a pumper truck? Can you properly and legally dispose of trap waste, brown grease? It is important to know that you are responsible for the disposal of the trap grease even if your hauler takes it away.
It is best to let the licensed professionals at Rebirth do the job.They have the ability to properly dispose of the waste, the tools to clean the trap and they can anticipate problems with a trap if they see corrosion, damaged baffles or other damaged parts. Their vacuum trucks will efficiently and cleanly empty the trap avoiding spills from manual emptying. They will provide proper records of maintenance and cleaning to keep you in compliance with regulations.
Grease trap cleaning should be done on a schedule recommended by your grease trap cleaning company to keep you in compliance with the 25% rule.
There are two accepted methods for professionals to empty and clean a grease interceptor. There is the pump and return where all contents of the trap are vacuumed out but the wastewater, minus FOGs and solids, is returned to the trap. The other, more frequently used method is the dry pump where all contents are removed and the trap is left dry. This can produce some unpleasant odors but they disappear quickly or freshwater can be run into the trap.
Over time your inlet and outlet pipes may become clogged which could lead to an overflow or backup into your kitchen. An outdoor grease trap that backs up may result in a sewer system backup. A grease trap cleaner must rod out the intake/outtake pipes regularly to prevent buildup of solids and grease. Either outcome is expensive, unpleasant and can lead to fines and cleanup costs.
A grease trap, after it is cleaned, may produce noxious orders for a short period of time. If you smell bad odors when your grease trap was cleaned days ago, there is likely something wrong. It could be a loose gasket or manhole cover or a serious backup. You should call your grease trap cleaning company immediately.
Flooding can cause significant damage to a grease trap and introduce all sorts of debris into them, blocking their effective functioning, preventing water from flowing through them causing backups and unsanitary conditions. After a flood you should have your grease trap cleaned right away even if you aren’t noticing bad odors or backups. Our team at Rebirth will inspect, pump, clean, rinse and dispose.
You should follow local ordinances for frequency of pumping as well as the 25% rule. The 25% rule states that the depth of FOGs plus solids (not waste water) should not exceed 25% of the capacity of the grease trap. So, if your trap is 36 inches deep the combined height of the solids (bottom) and the FOGs (top) should not exceed 9 inches. Above that level the functioning of the grease can be impaired leading to backups.
Most municipalities have regular grease trap inspections. Orleans Parish rule 16.5 requires each food service establishment to hire a licensed inspector who will then, after the trap is evacuated, visually inspect and photograph intakes, outtakes, floor, walls, baffles and other internal parts. The licensed inspector shall provide a written report with photographs to the Sewer and Water Board of New Orleans Plumbing Department as to the functioning and condition of the trap/interceptor.
All defects must be corrected within 90 days and a followup inspection will be scheduled.
ReBirth Biofuels can help prepare you for such an inspection by conducting their own inspections at each trap cleaning. They will notify you of any deficiencies they find so they can be corrected before the inspector from the Sewer and Water Board conducts his inspection.
The most important thing for a restaurant owner to do is to ask for a report from Rebirth as to the performance and condition of the grease trap and to make sure that they have all of the manifests for maintenance and prior inspections on file and onsite.
Read more about grease trap regulations in Louisiana.
Learn more about getting your grease trap set up and regular maintenance started.
Give us a call or fill out a form to learn more or get your used cooking oil service started as soon as you need it!
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