Grease Trap Service for Dallas Restaurants and Food Businesses

Trap or interceptor: what each one does

Kitchen wastewater carries fats, oils and grease (FOG) plus food bits. In the trap the flow slows and cools, grease floats up, solids settle, and baffles hold both back while clearer water moves on to the sewer. Grease that slips past hardens inside your pipes and then the city's mains. Dallas Water Utilities (DWU) uses 'grease trap' for both on its website. The two differ mainly in size:

• Grease traps: compact units, typically under 100 gallons, usually installed below a sink.
• Grease interceptors: large tanks, often precast concrete with two compartments, holding roughly 250 to 5,000 gallons and usually buried outside.

What Dallas requires from food businesses

DWU's pretreatment program enforces the grease rules in Chapter 19 of the Dallas City Code and inspects food service establishments. The main rules:

• Who needs one: any commercial or institutional food service operation in the city.
• Pump-out schedule: emptied completely every 90 days, or earlier if grease, floating material or sediment fills a quarter of the trap's liquid depth.
• Haulers: only a City of Dallas permitted liquid waste transporter.
• Supervision: someone from the business must supervise the pump-out and make sure the whole tank is emptied.
• Manifest: before any waste is pumped out, the hauler gives you a City of Dallas trip ticket to fill in. Both sides sign it, and the final copy stays at the business for three years.
• Upkeep: the business keeps its traps working and reports and cleans up grease spills.

The city's Defend Your Drains campaign asks homes and businesses to Cease the Grease.

Putting in a new trap or interceptor

A new kitchen, a bigger menu or a change of tenant is the usual trigger. A Deep Ellum storefront turned taco counter, or a Bishop Arts cafe adding a fryer, may find its old trap undersized or missing. DWU says size follows the sizing criteria in the Dallas plumbing code. A typical project:

1. Walk-through: every sink, dish machine and floor drain that will feed the unit, and how hard the line runs at peak.
2. Size and spot: sized to code, with lids where the hauler's hose reaches easily.
3. Permit: the plumber doing the work pulls the permit, and the city inspects before the unit takes kitchen water.
4. Install: paving cut for outdoor tanks, unit set, grease lines and sewer outlet tied in, cleanouts added for future jetting.

Cost depends on unit size, indoor or outdoor placement, paving to open, pipe length and the permit, so we quote after a site visit. All work is done under Texas plumbing license # M-27587.

Repairs, line jetting and slow kitchen drains

Plenty of grease trouble is outside the tank. We fix:

• Rusted, broken or missing baffles and outlet tees that let grease escape
• Cracked lids, risers and small under-sink units, and damaged flow-control fittings
• Grease-choked lines from the three-compartment sink and dish station, opened by cable or water jetting
• Bubbling floor drains and a sluggish outlet line to the city sewer
• Repeat clogs, checked by camera inspection for low spots or broken pipe

Jetting pushes softened grease into the tank, so book it shortly before your hauler is due. Failed pipe goes to drain repair or sewer line repair.

When the trap is in trouble

• Every sink along the dish area slowing down at once
• Floor drains that burble or pool water whenever the dish machine empties
• A sour, rotten odor in the kitchen or near the interceptor lids
• The trap filling faster between pump-outs than it once did
• Your hauler reporting broken baffles or a missing outlet tee

Call before it turns into a backup mid-dinner rush.

Habits that keep grease out of the line

• Scrape plates into the bin and wipe greasy pots with a paper towel first; DWU lists rinsing grease away with hot water as a common mistake.
• Pour spent fryer oil into covered containers for a used-oil collector, never a floor drain.
• Fit drain strainers and empty them into the trash.
• Go easy on disposals: ground food fills the trap sooner.
• Keep acids, strong cleaners, pesticides, paint and solvents out of every drain.

Dallas grease trap questions

Book grease trap work in Dallas

Call (844) 313-1397. Repairs and installs are booked at a time that suits you, such as before you open. We serve food businesses across Dallas, from Deep Ellum and downtown to Bishop Arts in Oak Cliff and the Fair Park area, busiest during the State Fair of Texas each fall, plus Irving, Garland and Mesquite, where each city's own grease rules apply. New customers get $50 off and a repair carries a $0 dispatch fee (coupons). See also commercial plumbing.