How We Check Every Grease Trap Number We Print
Every figure on this site can be traced to a document you can open yourself. A cleaning interval comes from a city ordinance, a price range from a dated public bid or fee schedule, a sizing number from a stated method. This page explains which source wins when two of them disagree, and what happens to a draft before it goes live.
The order these sources are ranked in
Grease interceptor questions rarely have a single national answer, so the ranking matters more than the number of citations.
Federal pretreatment rules set the frame. 40 CFR Part 403 establishes the national pretreatment program and hands day to day enforcement to the control authority, which for most kitchens is the publicly owned treatment works serving the address. The federal text explains the structure of the program. It does not hand you a pumping interval.
Model plumbing codes govern equipment and installation. The International Plumbing Code and the Uniform Plumbing Code, along with their appendices, decide where an interceptor is required, what access and venting it needs, and which sizing tables are available. Adopted editions differ by state and city, and local amendments are routine, so the edition your jurisdiction adopted is the one that applies.
Standards bodies define what a device must do to carry a rating. PDI G101 covers hydromechanical interceptor testing and the paired flow rate and grease capacity figures printed on the label. ASME A112.14.3 and A112.14.4 cover interceptor construction and grease removal devices. An IAPMO listing confirms that a model was evaluated against a standard, not that it suits a particular kitchen.
Why a city ordinance outranks a well written article
On two subjects, local pretreatment ordinances and FOG program rules sit above any general commentary, including ours: how often a device gets cleaned, and what paperwork the operator has to hold onto.
The ranking is practical, not ceremonial. Numeric local limits and the inspection regime are left to the control authority under federal rule, so the interval gets written by a sewer authority, a health department, or a city code, and that is the version an inspector reads back to you in the kitchen. One city fixes a calendar maximum of 90 days. Another writes the 25 percent rule, requiring service once combined grease and solids reach a quarter of the wetted depth. A third sets both and enforces whichever arrives first.
An article that reports "clean every 90 days" is describing one common ordinance and presenting it as physics. Our frequency page starts from the rule types and shows how to find the one that governs your address, because the honest answer to how often is a question about your jurisdiction and your grease load.
Why the manufacturer document beats the reseller listing
Specifications belong to whoever built the unit. A submittal sheet or installation manual from the manufacturer carries the tested flow rating, the grease capacity, the inlet and outlet configuration, the load rating for a buried unit, and the certification marks that were actually issued.
Reseller pages inherit those numbers second hand, then age. Model lines get revised, capacities get rounded, discontinued units stay listed for years, and one product photo ends up serving three sizes. When a specification appears here and we cannot find it on a document published by the manufacturer, we either leave it out or say plainly where the figure came from.
Every number arrives with its condition attached
A number without its condition is decoration. Three rules hold on every page.
An interval is attributed to whoever set it: a city, a sewer authority, a permit condition, or a manufacturer recommendation, named as such.
A price range is attributed to the public document it was read from, a competitive bid tabulation or a published permit fee schedule, with the buyer or issuing agency, the date it was read and the region named, or to a range of quotes carrying the same qualifiers. Our cost pages label what is inside the number, since pumping fees, disposal charges, and trip charges are billed differently around the country.
A size is attributed to the method that produced it. A figure from the drainage fixture unit tables, a figure from a fixture flow calculation under PDI G101, and a figure from a two minute drainage rule are three different answers to three different questions, so sizing pages state the method before the result.
When a source is old, we say how old. When a range is wide, we leave it wide rather than averaging it into false precision.
What the review does, and what it misses
Every page starts as an AI draft, and the Silverbeck Editorial Desk then works through it against the sources named on the page. That disclosure carries no conditions and applies to every page, including this one.
The review checks each number against the document it is attributed to, deletes claims that no cited source supports, verifies that code citations point to the section actually being described, and strips any sentence that drifts into the voice of a service company. Silverbeck publishes; it pumps, cleans, installs, and inspects nothing, and a draft that forgets that gets rewritten.
The limits are worth stating. No licensed engineer, plumber, or pretreatment coordinator signs off on these pages. There is no named expert reviewer, and inventing one would be worse than admitting the absence. The desk cannot know that your city amended its FOG ordinance last month, how a local inspector reads an ambiguous clause, what a hauler charges in your county this quarter, or whether a variance applies to your building. Sources age between reviews. Use a page here to ask sharper questions of the authority and the contractor, not to replace either.
Illustrations are drawn, not shot
Images on this site are AI generated. Alt text describes what the illustration actually shows and identifies it as an illustration, and the files carry metadata marking them as algorithmically produced.
No image here is captioned as a real job, a real customer, a real kitchen, or "our work", because none of them are. Where a photograph would be the honest format and none exists, the page runs without one.
Four things this site will not publish
Author biographies for people who do not exist, with or without a portrait.
Star ratings, testimonials, and review counts. We collect none, so we display none.
Competitor comparisons written as reviews. Products are described from their own documentation, and a comparison states which specifications were compared and which were left alone.
Compliance determinations for a specific establishment. Whether a given kitchen satisfies its permit is decided by the control authority that issued the permit, and a website that pretends otherwise is handing an operator a false clearance.
Corrections are marked, not quietly buried
Send corrections to desk@silverbeckworks.com with the page address and the sentence in question. A source citation helps and is not required.
The desk then checks the claim against the source it was drawn from, or against a better one if you supplied it, and rewrites the passage. A substantive change (a number, a code reference, a factual claim) gets a dated correction note at the foot of that page saying what was wrong and what it now says. Typographical fixes and clarity edits are made without a note.
Publication dates are never bumped to look recent. Two separate fields run on every page: the date of first publication, and the date of the most recent review. Neither one borrows the other's value. A fresh review stamp tells you the desk went back through the sources on an older page, and nothing more than that; it is not a claim that the page was written this month.
The referral arrangement gets no vote
Calling (800) 555-0184 reaches a partner service company covering the caller's area. Work booked through it can send a fee back to Silverbeck from the company performing it, with nothing added to what the kitchen pays. The full arrangement is written out on how we make money.
No manufacturer, distributor, or hauler pays for placement or coverage. Where a brand comes off well on this site, the reason is that its own published documentation supports the claim being made. Should that stop being true, the disclosure on this page gets rewritten before anything else does.