Grease Trap Cleaning on Vancouver Island: What Every Restaurant Owner Needs to Know
Nobody gets into the restaurant business because they’re passionate about grease traps.
You got into it for the food, the hospitality, the regulars who order the same thing every Tuesday. The grease trap is just one of those unglamorous realities that comes with running a commercial kitchen, and honestly, as long as it’s being looked after, you never have to think about it.
The problem is when it isn’t.
What Is a Grease Trap, Exactly?
A grease trap, sometimes called a grease interceptor, sits in your kitchen’s drain lines and catches fats, oils, and grease (FOG) before they make their way into the municipal sewer system. Left unchecked, that grease builds up in the lines until something gives, usually at a time that’s deeply inconvenient for you.
In BC, grease traps are mandatory for all commercial food service operations. Regional health authorities inspect them and require operators to keep maintenance records. It’s not optional, and it’s not something you can quietly deal with after an inspection catches it.
What Actually Happens When You Leave It Too Long
Here’s the version nobody likes to hear: a grease trap that’s overdue backs up into your kitchen. FOG overflows into your drain lines, causes blockages, and in the worst cases ends up on your kitchen floor mid-service. Your line stops. Your health authority compliance goes sideways. And the emergency plumber you’re calling on a Saturday night charges a lot more than a routine maintenance visit ever would.
It’s never a good time for a grease trap to fail, but it tends to pick the worst ones. A regular maintenance schedule means it’s just not something you ever have to worry about. The grease trap doesn’t give you much warning. It just stops working.
How Often Does It Actually Need to Be Cleaned?
The regulatory standard across most BC municipalities, including regional districts across Vancouver Island, is that grease traps need to be cleaned when FOG and solids hit 25% of the trap’s total liquid depth, or every 90 days, whichever comes first.
What that looks like in practice:
- High-volume kitchens (busy restaurants, commercial cafeterias) often need monthly cleaning
- Moderate-volume kitchens (cafés, smaller restaurants, food trucks) typically every 60–90 days
- Low-volume kitchens quarterly may be enough, but worth confirming with an inspection
The honest answer is that it depends on your kitchen, how much you’re cooking, what you’re cooking, and how big your trap is. We’ll have a look and give you a realistic schedule, not the most frequent one we can sell you.
What We Actually Do When We Show Up
A service visit includes a full pump-out, manual scraping of the walls and baffles, an inspection of the inlet and outlet, and a dated service record for your health authority compliance files.
That last piece is more important than it sounds. BC health authorities require food service operators to keep maintenance records for at least two years, and inspectors ask for them. We handle the paperwork on our end so it’s one less thing on yours.
On Pricing: No Surprises
We charge a flat rate. The number we give you is the number on your invoice, no fuel surcharges, no environmental disposal fees, no line items that show up after the fact. Some companies quote low and pad the invoice on the back end. We’ve heard enough stories about it from new customers that we decided early on to just not do that.
Operators who set up a regular maintenance schedule with us typically pay less per visit than those who call us for a one-off emergency. Staying on top of it is better for your kitchen and, frankly, cheaper in the long run.
Where We Work on Vancouver Island
We service restaurants, cafés, food trucks, and commercial kitchens across the island, including:
We’re a local company, which means no mainland logistics, no call centre, and no ferry surcharge tacked onto your bill. When you call us, you get a real person who knows your area and can tell you straight when we can be there.
Overdue for a service, or just want to get a schedule sorted before it becomes a problem? Give us a call to talk with our experts today!
Call (250) 710.3191 or request a quote at firstclassfacilities.ca
