Every restaurant and food establishment requires a grease interceptor.  A grease interceptor is required by code: GVRD bylaw #365 and its function is to remove fats, oils and grease (F.O.G’s) from the sanitary system before it enters the public sewer system.

There’s two ways to install a grease interceptor:

  • Above grade – within the restaurant back of house, kitchen area.

  • Below grade – buried in the slab or hanging in a parkade below.

In this blog we are going talk about the first option: above grade and the limits to installing an above grade grease interceptor.

The challenge with above grade grease interceptors is that they can be quite large.  That is there is no space to fit them in a smaller restaurant or older building due to space limitations.  In these cases we recommend low profile or multiple smaller grease interceptors to serve each kitchen sink such that they fit underneath the plumbing fixture it is connected too.

What we do not recommend to do is of the installation in the photos below:

We understand why the plumber installed it this way because the invert (height of inlet) into the grease interceptor is higher than the outlet of the kitchen sink.  Thus gravity would not allow the kitchen sink to drain into the grease interceptor.  Hence the logic of raising the kitchen sink.

However raising your sink up with metal rods zap strapped to the legs is not an approved method.  It’s a matter of time before this completely fails and if fully loaded with water; the weight of hundreds of pounds could seriously injure someone.  Just a small 2 compartment sink 24″x24″x18″ will weigh over 375 lbs.

Further you can see in one of the photos a plastic zap strap has already failed!

As always please hire experienced and certified plumbers to do your installation, ask for their license, insurance and copy of plumbing permit so you may avoid these dangerous installations.

James Hicks P.Eng.

Evolve Mechanical Solutions

604.837.8594

 

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