If pumping out grease traps is part of your service offerings, it’s inevitable that equipment will become coated with grease and need washing. So what do you do about grease buildup on your equipment?

Having the right cleaning equipment, knowing where to look for grease buildup and routine maintenance will keep your pumping gear clean and grease-free.

John Remstedt, president of Grease Masters in St. Charles, Missouri, says that grease buildup in the suction hoses isn’t really an issue.

“We use Kanaflex hose and we’ve never had problems with grease on the inside. If we do get some stuff on the inside of the hoses, we just jet them out quick,” Remstedt says.

Grease Masters uses the Advance Pump & Equipment jetter box system, so the same unit can be used as a pressure washer and a jetter.

Grease finds a way

No matter how careful you are when cleaning out grease traps, grease will find its way onto equipment and clothes.

“It’s mostly in the tops of the tanks and the valves and on the bunk rails of the truck,” Remstedt says. “You’ll get it on your gloves, and it gets all over everything. You just have to wash everything — a lot.”

Luckily, cleaning is relatively simple. Remstedt has seen that just hot water is all it takes to thoroughly clean grease off equipment; he doesn’t use any chemicals. 

“We use a hot-water pressure washer to clean the grease off everything,” Remstedt says. “If you use 180-degree F hot water, it will take care of it.”

As the hose is coming out of the grease trap, especially with outside grease traps, Grease Masters crews rinse it off with the pressure washer before packing it back on the truck.

As for the inside of the actual grease trap, “There are multiple ways to deal with it,” Remstedt says. “There’s the Crust Buster; we use those. All of my trucks have pressure washers: We pressure wash the inside of every grease trap we clean.” 

That technique works great for outside grease traps; but pressure-washing grease traps inside can make a big mess, so those are scraped out.