Grease Trap Woes

[njrqs]

I hope you guys call a grease trap a grease trap or otherwise you won't have the faintest idea what I am taking about.

Basically all our grey water from everything except the kitchen sink goes into a collection box and out pipes into the yard. No worries.

Kitchen sink water only used to go into another box and then down a pipe to trees but of course it was all clogged up with fat etc. when we got here and the box was overflowing right near the house. Very smelly !!

So I installed a plastic grease trap. No worries. But I have a very flat yard near the house and the outlet pipe doesn't fall sufficiently and the grease trap still overflows.

I have a 40mm (1 1/2") pipe into the grease trap.
Out of the grease trap I have 32mm (1 1/4") poly pipe, partyly underground, partyly above ground to let me direct it into various parts of the yard.

(When I say yard I mean the areas we don't play in)

The water coming out of the grease trap is still very fatty but no solids or anything so it appears to be doing its job OK.

Any ideas?

Maybe I need a proper 100mm (4") line out of the grease trap trenched to correct falls and then turn it into some outfall device but that would go along way from the house.

I could also put in a gravel pit and let all the water go into that.

What I want to do is get the stinky water away from the house but not go digging/trenching big runs of pipe.

Anyone in similar situation??

Cheers

PS - Attached pic shows grease trap at bottom of vertical pipe coming down wall (Pipe along ground is from the pool, not grease trap. I have since raised the grease trap up to give me more head pressure but still not good)

 

[njrqs]

Ooops here is pic.

 

[Mike_Dumond]

My first question is why doesn't the discharge from the grease trap go into your regular system?? Sounds like you have a very concentrated mix that needs to be diluted for it to run off. The main reason for the grease trap is to keep the fatty solids from the main system. The residual fats, (in suspension)should cause very little problems in the main system.

 

[Egon]

Neil:
I have never seen or heard of a grease trap but from your discription I assume the lines downstream from the trap are clogging up.
As suggestions:
Perhaps try and run as much boiling water through the system as possible. This may may liquify the fat so it clears the pipes.
Caustic soda will dissolve grease and most other animal products like leather gloves. It has a very high PH and should be treated very carefully. It would clear your pipes. It could damage the sink finish but should not react with plastic. When using it protection like goggles,gloves and plastic/rubber rainwear should be worn.
Caustic soda may be one of the main ingredients of all the liquid plummer products such as Draino.
In the oil fields pipelines lines are cleared of wax by forcing a rubber ball of slightly less diameter than the pipe [ we called them pigs ] through the line. If your lines are straight this may work but if the line gets really plugged up the ball will get stuck and the line is completly plugged up.
Another tool used to clear plugged pipes was called a roto rooter. It usesa small line leading to a tip with backward facing nozzles. The pressure cleans the pipe, pulls the line ahead and forces all the debri out at the point the tool is installed. There are other versions of this with diferent tips.
Could you force a smaller line, plastic or garden hoze, through the main line while running water through it?
Perhaps a strong string attached to a wad of cloth could be forced through the pipe using water pressure. Then a much stronger rope is pulled through. This rope could then be attached to a ball and pulled through. Just make sure you also have the rope attached so the ball can be pulled out from the inlet if it gets stuck.

All just ideas.

Question:
how often is the grease trap cleaned out or how do you get the grease out of the trap.

Egon

 

[beenthere]

Years ago (fifty's) we had a grease trap ahead of the septic system. It was a mess cleaning it when it was full. Never see them anymore, and around here, your system would not be legal. Cannot dump grey water and the like onto the lawns. All must go into the septic system.
After hearing of your plight, I wouldn't want all that hose and piping laying around the yard. Grey water smells as it also has bacteria in it. But the biggest problem, to me, would be trying to mow the lawn around all that stuff laying there. But each to there own.
I sure don't envy you having to deal with the grease trap. Beenthere!

 

[njrqs]

Thanks all.

Around here, the only stuff going into septic tanks is the water from the toilet. All other water goes out into the yard. Totally legal.

My grey water goes into areas of the yard that we don't frequent.

The design of the house is such that only the kitchen water comes out one side and ALL other water goes the other way. To change that would need a lot of work.

The pipe AFTER the grease trap is brand new. I just installed it so it can't be clogged (The old one was 1/2 solid with grease as there was no grease trap)

So the water after my grease trap is pretty clean. It stinks but is clean.

It just doesn't have enough fall to get away quick enough.

Hmmmmmmm

 

[bgott]

You might look around and see if there is some kind of bioremediation stuff available to eat the grease. They're doing amazing stuff with bugs these days.

 

[bgott]

http://www.biocritters.com/howitworks.html

I re-read your post and finally got it through my skull that you have a plumbing problem, not a grease problem. But since I chased down this URL I stuck it here anyway. You need to dig your pipe deeper to get some drop and then run a leach line. Do a site search and look for "septic drain field". Grey water or black, you still need some way for it to drain into the dirt.

 

[chim]

How about pumping the de-greased water? Our land perked for a conventional septic system - vs. "sand mound". The problem was that the house was not high enough to allow gravity to take the liquids too the drain (leach) field. We have a line from the house to the septic tank, then a short line to another tank with a pump in it. There is a float switch that enables the pump when that tank reaches a certain level. The pump forces the water to the drain field. This system has been working fine since 1989.

It would be a way to get around the level grade...........chim

 

[njrqs]

Yep pumping is the norm here too.

But normally ALL grey water incl. kitchen goes into the tank and is pumped from there.

I like the gravity system due lack of $ and complxity unfortunately gravity is not sucking enough for me !!!