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Grease Traps

3K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  Plumberman 
#1 ·
As a rule, the only service I do is warranty work on product we sold and installed. That said, there have been exceptions. Reading the threads on live and dead animals brought back a memory.
A GC customer called with a problem. His client, a local college, had a grease trap in a dining facility that apparently was leaking and had been leaking for quite some time. It was built into a raised floor over a crawl space and it serviced, among other things, a soda fountain. The leak was mature enough that the sugar in the fountain syrup mixed with god knows what else was fermenting and quite odiferous. Got so bad that you could tell which way the wind was blowing just by the reaction of people in the vicinity of the building. And the school's maintenance crews wanted no part of it.
Upon investigation, I made him a proposition. First, I said I'd replace the interceptor. Second, there would be no quote and the bill would be what it was. He and the school would have to agree with my terms or get another turd herder. They said, "Fine, when can you start?"
We bought a couple of 50# bags of lime, crawled under the building with suits and masks and spread the powder over every inch of contaminated soil we could find. Then we let it sit for a couple of days, went back and changed out the trap. Once the smell went away, the repair was no big deal. And, payment was swift and complete.
 
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#2 ·
I had a similar experince at a college kitchen. When a floor drain would stop up, instead of calling a plumber they would take mop handles and bust out the cast iron traps. There was a c.s about 3-4 ft tall under the kitchen. On there commerical garbage disposal they did the same thing, busted the trap. For about 3 months this thing dumped underneath the kitchen. Everyday, 3 times a day for 90 days. We finally got the call when the smell was too much for them to handle any longer. I went down the access hole and gagged. I have never smelt something so rancid in all my life. We suited up and poured 100lbs of lime. Waited a few days, still stunk. BAD. Finally came up with a plan to pour over 100 yards of concrete underneath the kitchen and install sump pumps after we fixed the plumbing issues. We had to crawl throughout the underside of the kitchen and mount construction lights for the concrete guys. It wasnt so bad when all we had were flashlights because when we hit the lights we had been crawling through maggots:eek: and rotten food.:eek::eek: They layed vapor barrirer and plastic before they poured the concrete..... We fixed the plumbing and installed sump pumps.... FINALLY the smell was gone. Thats the worst it has gotten for me so far.....
 
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