Commercial Kitchen Drain Blockage Cleared near Oxford – Fat and Grease Build-Up

No matter how careful a kitchen is, fats, oils and food waste inevitably enter the drainage system.
Over time this build-up can restrict pipework and eventually cause serious blockages — something that can disrupt or even temporarily close a busy commercial kitchen.

We were recently called to a commercial kitchen near Oxford, where a floor drain was draining slowly and unpleasant smells had begun developing around the back of the kitchen.

As soon as the sinks were tested and the floor drain (gully) started to back up, it was clear from visible grease that this would take more than a simple plunge to get it going. Luckily, our jetting hose could reach from the back door, so we were able to use high pressure water jetting to not only clear the blockage, but also break up and shift all the fat and grease that had been slowly reducing the diameter of the pipe by forming fat along the length of the underground pipe.

Commercial and Household Grease

The build-up of fat can be surprisingly solid.

From the photo shown here you can see where solid fat had accumulated and completely restricted the pipe – which was only 2″ diameter but the fat filled the bottom the wetvac…

No matter the type of kitchen, it’s a matter of volume and time, both residential and commercial kitchens can suffer from fat and grease, even when as much care as possible has been taken.

Over time:

• Residues from plates such as sauces end up flowing with the waste water down the plughole.
• Bits of solid food waste get past, especially when washing up is done in large volumes, and can block the gaps where fat is forming, adding to the mass.
• As free flowing grease molecules cool down they cling to the pipe. Once underground, they combine with calcium and become solid fat.
• As opposed to other kinds of blockages which form in one place, fat blockages occur when the entire length of the pipe is reduced, allowing less and less water to pass through.

Back to our example, this was repeatedly jetted from the floor drain as there was no access downstream, and we didn’t want to disrupt the customer’s business by poking around where people were sitting.

But by spending some time using high pressure water jetting and a specialist nozzle designed to cut fat and grease as it passes through, we both cleared it and degreased the entire line so it wouldn’t block anytime soon.

How to Prevent Fats, Oils and Grease from Blocking Commercial Kitchen Drains

This particular kitchen wasn’t quite big or busy enough for a traditional grease trap, and it took over a decade for this to build up – so in this case we’ve set up a six-monthly PPM (pre-planned maintenance) plan to degrease the kitchen drainage preemptively. If six months is too soon, we’ll adjust it accordingly but the important thing is that they now have some form of FOG management, keeping them compliant and preventing disruption to their business.

This job just proved that even the most careful, smaller kitchens can succumb to fatbergs, given enough time. Here are the top three ways to combat fat and grease before it affects your business:

PPM

Pre-planned maintenance

Convenient and Cheaper

This is the best brute force method of ensuring your drains keep flowing.

grease traps

Most effective

Sizes for Most Kitchens

This proves you are compliant, sustainable and shows an obvious, visible control measure to auditors and potential customers.

FOg management

staff training/ control measures

Most Cost Effective

This is the best method of preventing fat and grease. Train your staff, provide food waste bins and appropriate plugs, etc and minimise FOG from the source.

Ideally you want to use a combination of the above, using the logic that you’ve trained your staff and provided all the equipment you can and even put signs up to remind people, but through sheer volume (especially during busy periods) some food waste and grease will get through.

This is where the grease trap comes in, capturing the reduced food waste in a basket (usually) before separating the free flowing fat and grease molecules through different compartments, allowing cleaner waste water to enter the waste pipes.

Left untreated, grease build-up can eventually force a commercial kitchen to stop operating until the drainage system is cleared.