A commercial kitchen asks more of its drainage than almost any other room in any other building. Every sinkful of washing-up water carries dissolved fat, every rinse of a roasting tray adds oil, and the pipework underneath has to take that load twice a day, seven days a week. TrueFlow provides commercial drainage for restaurants, cafés, takeaways, hotel kitchens and staff canteens across Berkshire and the surrounding counties: grease trap emptying and cleaning, planned jetting, and a phone that is answered at any hour when something gives way during a sitting.
Why the pipe fails where you can’t see it
Hot detergent water holds fat in suspension, which is why it leaves the sink looking harmless. The suspension only survives while the water stays hot. A few metres into the pipework the temperature drops, the emulsion breaks, and the fat comes back out of the water and clings to the pipe wall, preferring the places where flow is slowest: a gentle fall, a junction, a long run under the yard. Food solids, starch rinsed off rice and pasta, and coffee grounds lodge in that sticky layer and reinforce it. Each service contributes a film too thin to notice, so the drain gives no warning until the bore is nearly gone, and because the build-up happens downstream, the failure often surfaces somewhere other than the kitchen that caused it. Where that somewhere is a run shared with the units next door, the question of who pays has rules of its own, set out in our guide to blocked drain responsibility.
There is a legal dimension to this, kept short here because it deserves a page of its own. Discharging grease that obstructs a public sewer can put a food business in breach of the Water Industry Act, and water companies do trace sewer blockages back to the premises responsible and pursue the cost. A kitchen that manages its grease is not just protecting its own pipework; it is staying on the right side of its sewerage undertaker.
Grease trap emptying and cleaning
A grease trap earns its keep by filling up, and that is also how it stops working: once the chamber reaches capacity, incoming water pushes straight through and the trap becomes a box the grease merely visits on its way to the pipe. We empty and clean grease traps at a frequency set by the rate yours actually fills, removing the accumulated fat and solids, washing out the chamber and baffles, and checking the unit goes back into service working as designed.
Every collection is documented. TrueFlow is an Upper Tier registered waste carrier (registration CBDU538687), and you receive a Waste Transfer Note for each visit; the note is in your hand before the van leaves, not posted after a reminder.
Scheduled jetting for stacks and gullies
The trap protects one line; the rest of the kitchen’s drainage still works for a living. High-pressure jetting, from £150 including VAT at up to 4000psi, takes the grease layer off the pipe wall itself rather than drilling a passage through the middle, and it belongs on a schedule for two runs in particular: the kitchen stack that takes the sinks and dishwashers, and the yard gullies outside the back door that collect wash-down water, bin-store runoff and whatever the weather adds. How often is a judgement about your kitchen rather than a number off a chart, and it is one we make on a free site survey.
Visits that fit trading hours
A jetting hose and a lunchtime service do not share a kitchen well. A firm that already works nights has no surcharge mindset about them: planned visits go in the diary for the hours your business is closed, before the morning deliveries, after close-down, or on the dark day if you have one. The work is the same; the only difference is that no customer ever sees it.
Drainage records when the inspector calls
Food hygiene inspections look at the condition of the premises as a whole, and drainage that smells, backs up or visibly struggles invites questions no operator wants mid-inspection. Landlords and their agents ask similar questions at lease events. A file of Waste Transfer Notes and dated jetting reports answers both audiences before they ask: it shows the grease is being removed lawfully and the pipework is being maintained deliberately rather than rescued occasionally. We supply that paperwork as standard on every visit, so keeping the file current takes no effort beyond filing it.
A blockage in the middle of service
When a sink backs up with a full dining room through the door, the schedule stops mattering and speed starts. Emergency call-outs start from £120 including VAT, we work to a 60-minute response target, and the engineer who arrives carries the equipment to clear a grease blockage there and then rather than survey it and come back. The exact price is agreed before work starts, every job is covered by insurance, and the work carries a 6-month guarantee.
Kitchen drainage FAQs
How often will our trap need emptying?
As often as it fills, and the fill rate is particular to your kitchen: what the trap can hold, set against the covers you do and the menu you cook. We weigh those on a free site survey and set the schedule from that, then adjust it once the first few collections show the real fill rate.
What paperwork do we get when the waste leaves site?
A Waste Transfer Note for every collection, issued by TrueFlow as an Upper Tier registered waste carrier (CBDU538687). The note records what was taken, when and by whom, and you should keep it for at least two years as part of your duty-of-care records. It is also the document an inspector or landlord will ask for first.
Will a clearance shut the kitchen?
Usually not. Emergency call-outs run around the clock, start from £120 including VAT, and we work to a 60-minute response target. Where the blockage allows it, the engineer will work from the yard or an external access point so the kitchen can keep trading while the drain is cleared.
Can the trap and the jetting be done in one visit?
Yes, and it is usually the economical way to run the schedule: the trap is emptied and washed out, then the kitchen stack and yard gullies are jetted while the engineer is already on site, and the visit produces a single set of paperwork, including the Waste Transfer Note for anything taken away. A combined scope is priced at the site survey like everything else, with the figure agreed before the visit is booked.
Price the schedule before the drain sets it
Maintenance contracts are quoted after a free site survey, one-off visits carry the prices on our pricing page, and every figure includes VAT and is agreed before work begins. Call 0808 175 7440, or request a callback and tell us what your kitchen sends down the drain.