Restaurant Drain Cleaning & Maintenance: What You Will Need

If you own a restaurant, you’ve probably dealt with your share of backed-up drains. Most of the time, drain issues are minor annoyances. Simply clear the clog and get back to work. But sometimes, clogged drains lead to flooded kitchens. Customers have to wait while it’s cleaned up and employees risk slipping and injuring themselves on wet floors. Even worse than that, sometimes drain problems can cause a stink so bad that it will drive customers away. Peterson Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Drains offers drain cleaning & quartley maintenance as a preventative measure along with a drain treatment. Call us today at 970-399-7063.

How to Unclog Restaurant Sink Drains and Floor Drains

Backups in commercial kitchen drains are usually due to fat, oil, and grease that make their way down the drain. As they cool, the liquid solidifies, clogging the drain. These clogs need to be addressed as soon as possible, so your employees can get back to work and also prevent major damages to the pipes.

First, attempt to remove the blockage with a plunger. If that doesn’t work, try a plumbing snake, sometimes called a drain snake, a small, flexible tool used to break up clogs that won’t respond to a plunger. Sometimes, running hot water is enough to dissolve the grease clogging the drain. Or you can try pouring baking soda down the drain, followed by vinegar.

Peterson’s advises against using drain cleaning solutions, even well-known brands. These chemicals may be effective in the short run, but if you are not careful they can damage your pipes, requiring costly repairs. Also, never try to clean a drain with bleach. While it may kill germs and get rid of odors, bleach will not dissolve clogs. And any bleach that is left behind in the pipes could turn into a hazardous gas if mixed with another chemical, like ammonia.

How to Prevent Problems

The best restaurant drain cleaning strategy is to take preventative measures to prevent the clogs in the first place. This is cheaper in the long run instead of waiting until it can distrupt your business.

• Never put food scraps, grease, or oil down the drain.
It’s only a matter of time before they build up in the drain and cause a clog.

• Use drain covers.
Drain covers are a simple way to prevent large pieces of food and debris from accidentally washing down the drain.

• Use grease traps.
Grease traps prevent fat, oil & grease from accumulating in a restaurant’s pipes. They’re designed to give greasy water that’s poured down the drain a chance to cool. Then, the oils solidify and float to the surface while the water continues down the pipes to the sewer system.

What Makes a Restaurant Smell Like Sewage?

If grease traps aren’t cleaned regularly, they’ll give off the odor of rotten eggs. That smell is hydrogen sulfide gas, produced by bacteria growing in the traps. Not only will the smell drive away your customers, the gas is flammable, so it also poses a hazard to your kitchen staff.

Letting “P-traps” get dried out is another thing that may cause a restaurant to smell like sewage. A P-trap is a U-shaped pipe under a sink. When there is water in it, that water keeps sewer gases from backing up. When the pandemic started and the number of people eating out dropped dramatically, many restaurants experienced this problem. Their sinks were getting much less use, so the P-traps dried out, letting the sewage smells back up the drain. If that ever happens in your restaurant, experts recommend running hot water down the drain to fill the P-trap and eliminate the smell.

Drain Maintenance

Quartley drain cleaning done by professionals can help prevent problems like these. Many restaurants rely on drain service to keep their drains functioning properly. When our technicians come out they will also treat the drain with a drian line treat & conditioner that is a fast acting enzyme and long lasting bacteria to target and digest organic materials and keep drain lines clean an odor free.

Contact Peterson’s Today

As a restaurant owner, you have enough on your plate. Let Peterson’s worry about your drains, so you can focus on serving your customers. Contact us today to find out more about restaurant drain cleaning, as well as the other services we offer.to get this set up.

Understanding Different Types of Water Heaters

Storage Tank Water Heater

Storage tanks are the most common type of water heater. As the name suggests, these consist of an insulated tank in which water is heated and stored until needed, then emerges from a pipe on top of the water heater.

There is also a temperature- and pressure-relief valve, which opens if either exceeds a preset level.

Natural-gas water heaters typically use less energy and cost less to run (by about half) than electric water heaters, although you should note that gas models cost more.

Electric Water Heater

Electric water heaters use electricity to heat water. They usually comprise a water tank and one or several electric resistance coils that sit directly in the tank. Once electricity passes through the coils, they heat up the water before it’s distributed throughout the house.  

Tankless (On-Demand) Water Heater

Rather than storing water, tankless water heaters use heating coils to heat the water as you need it. They’re more energy-efficient than a storage tank but provide only a limited flow of hot water per minute—about 3.5 gallons, depending on inlet water temperatures.

They’re best for people who typically aren’t drawing water for more than one use at a time—such as running a shower and dishwasher simultaneously.

Tankless models are best for homes that use natural gas to heat the water; electric models might require an expensive upgrade of the home’s electrical capacity.

Electric Water Heater Pros and Cons

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Cons

Gas Water Heater Pros and Cons

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Cons

Tankless Water Heater Pros and Cons

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Cons

Check for rebates. Whether your water heater installation is new or a replacement, you may be eligible for a rebate from your local utility company, which can offset some of the cost. To see whether your utility offers rebates, check its website or the federal Energy Star rebate finder

Help Stop Bullying and Share This Message

Join Peterson Plumbing to Stop Bullying

stop bullyingPeterson Plumbing believes it’s important that our communities understand how bullying affects all of us. While most of the repercussions of intimidation and violence are associated with children, anyone can experience the negative impact of being bullied.

Victims have been known to suffer from anxiety, depression, sadness and loss of interest in work, studies, and hobbies and can also lead to suicide.  Sufferers have seen negative changes in their health. Bullying needs to stop!

 

What Exactly Is Bullying?

Bullying is defined as any intentional, repeated aggressive behavior directed by a perpetrator against a target in the same age group.

 

One of the most noteworthy components of bullying is an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim.

Sometimes, the power imbalance is obvious when, for example, a bigger, stronger kid bullies a weaker, smaller kid or when a group of people bullies a single individual. However, sometimes the power imbalance is more difficult to discern because it involves less obvious factors, such as differences in popularity, intelligence, or ability, or knowledge of the information the victim finds embarrassing.

 

6 Types of Bullying

Bullying falls into six categories, some of which are more obvious than others. They include:

 
  1. Physical bullying
  2. Verbal bullying
  3. Relational bullying
  4. Cyberbullying
  5. Sexual bullying
  6. Prejudicial bullying

Physical Bullying

Physical bullying involves any attack on a person’s body, including hitting, kicking, tripping, or pushing. It can also extend to inappropriate hand gestures or stealing or breaking a victims’ belongings

Verbal Bullying

One study found that verbal bullying was the most common form of bullying. Boys experienced this type of bullying at a slightly higher rate than girls, and most were bullied by their own friends

Relational Bullying

involves actions intended to harm a victim’s reputation or relationships. It can include embarrassing the victim in public, spreading rumors, purposely leaving them out of social situations, or ostracizing them from a group.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying is bullying that happens via electronic devices like computers, smart phones, and tablets. It can take place over text messages, social media, apps, or online forums and involves posting or sending harmful content, including messages and photos, and sharing personal information that causes humiliation.

Sexual Bullying

Sexual bullying is online or in-person bullying that involves sexual comments or actions, including sexual jokes and name-calling, crude gestures, spreading sexual rumors, sending sexual photos or videos, and touching or grabbing someone without permissio

Learn how to identify bullying and stand up to it safely. Become an upstander