Benefits of Restaurant Grease Trap & Hood Cleaning

A heavy-duty kitchen requires heavy-duty cleaning. And since most restaurants are outfitted with things that we don’t necessary find in our home kitchens, it’s not always clear how to best maintain your equipment.

Grease traps and ventilation hoods are crucial features in any commercial kitchen, and any restaurant owner can tell you how important it is to keep them well maintained. Here’s a rundown of the benefits of grease trap and hood cleaning.

Why Clean My Grease Traps?

Regular grease trap cleaning is important for any commercial kitchen. Most restaurants opt to have a professional facility management provider perform these specialized services, which are important to:

1. Prevent clogs and backup – when too much fat, oil, and grease (or FOG, a common industry shorthand) build up in your grease traps, they can clog. Not only does this reduce the traps’ functionality, but these clogs can also cause the system to back up – a serious health hazard, especially in a busy kitchen.

2. Protect your finances – speaking of drain backups, the chaos resulting from an overfilled grease trap shouldn’t be underestimated. In fact, these messes can be expensive to clean up and will often require you to close your doors to customers while doing so. In an industry with razor-thin profit margins, that can be catastrophic.

3. Save the environment – grease traps are meant to keep fats and oils out of your building’s sewage system. When those traps overflow and lose their ability to capture more grease, much of it ends up escaping outside, often into major waterways or in-ground drainage fields. This is very harmful to the local environment, and can score you a hefty fine to boot.

Keeping a log of service appointments, including the date of pumping and how much waste was removed, can help to optimize performance and keep maintenance costs low by avoiding unnecessary appointments down the road.

Why Clean My Kitchen Hood?

By scheduling periodic kitchen hood cleaning, you can make your restaurant a safer and cleaner place for staff and customers alike. This crucial service will:

1. Improve ventilation – the primary purpose of a kitchen ventilation hood is to pull up the fumes from your stovetop, improving the air quality for both staff and customers. But over time, those fumes form a greasy residue on the hood that can impair its ability to function. Regular cleaning keeps your kitchen hood effective even in the busiest kitchen.

2. Avoid fires – when grease starts to collect in your hood, it can present a serious fire hazard. Think about it: you’ve got a highly flammable material and a powerful heat source just a couple of feet away.  Failure to keep the hood cleared of grease will put your staff and business at risk, and may result in fines for not adhering to local or national fire codes.

3. Maintain kitchen hygiene – once that layer of used cooking oil collecting on the hood gets thick enough, it’ll start to drip onto floors, clothing, even the meals being prepared. Nobody wants to deal with warm, semi-rancid oil – least of all your paying customers.

For grease trap management and other kitchen maintenance solutions with an eco-friendly approach, there’s only one Grand Natural. Contact us online or call (855) 519-5550 today for more information.