Grease Trap Maintenance for Spokane County Restaurants: FOG Compliance Basics

For most restaurants and commercial kitchens in Spokane County, the grease trap needs to be fully pumped on a 30-, 60-, or 90-day cycle, and you need dated documentation proving it. FOG — fats, oils, and grease — compliance is not complicated, but it is unforgiving: the citations and the clogged-line emergencies almost always come down to a missed interval or a missing manifest. Here is the working knowledge a kitchen operator needs.

What a grease trap is actually doing

Every kitchen sends fats, oils, and grease down the drain no matter how careful the staff is. A grease trap or exterior interceptor slows the wastewater enough that grease floats to the top and solids sink, so only the relatively clean middle layer continues to the sewer or septic system. It works right up until the trap fills — then grease carries straight through and the trap is doing nothing while you still think it is protecting you.

How often does it need service?

The honest answer is: as often as it takes to keep the grease-and-solids volume under the point where the trap stops working — and at least as often as your local FOG rule requires. In practice most kitchens fall into a predictable range based on volume and trap size.

• High-volume kitchens and small under-sink traps: often every 30 days.
• Moderate-volume kitchens with mid-size traps: roughly every 60 days.
• Lower-volume operations with larger exterior interceptors: around 90 days.

The wrong approach is guessing and finding out you were wrong when a line clogs during dinner service. We set an interval based on your actual volume and trap size, then hold it on a recurring schedule so the date never slips.

Grease trap service and scheduling →

Pump-out, not skim

A trap that is skimmed off the top — grease removed, the rest left — looks serviced and is not. The settled solids on the bottom keep building, the working volume shrinks, and the interval you negotiated no longer protects you. A real service fully evacuates the trap or interceptor and scrapes the walls and baffles. Ask any vendor whether they fully pump or skim; the answer tells you a lot.

The documentation is half the job

One of the most common FOG citations is not a dirty trap — it is the inability to prove the trap was serviced. Every service should produce a dated manifest you can hand to a health inspector or the sewer district on the spot. Keep them together and current. We provide that documentation on every visit specifically because the paperwork is what an inspection turns on as often as the trap itself.

What it costs you to skip it

1. Grease carries downstream and clogs your building's lines — a closed kitchen during a repair.
2. On septic, FOG destroys the system far faster than normal wastewater.
3. Missed intervals and missing manifests draw fines under local FOG rules.
4. An emergency line jetting or pump-out costs far more than scheduled service.

Scheduled grease trap service is one of the few maintenance items where the math is not close: the recurring service is a small, predictable cost, and the failure is an unpredictable, expensive one that can close your kitchen. Set the right interval, keep the manifests, and it is a non-event.

Grease trap service in Spokane Valley →