While a drainage clog of any kind when you’re home is unpleasant to deal with and you might mean you’ll have to bring a plumber in, at least you know it won’t cost you a week or even a month’s worth of pay. Unfortunately, if your clog happens in your restaurant, this could very well occur. When you own a restaurant, you know there are plenty of moving parts that can go wrong on any given night. If someone causes a clog on a busy night, they might not have to pay for it–but you certainly will. Sometimes you may not know what caused the clog, but you’ll definitely know it happened. Here are some of the most common reasons you’ll get a restaurant clog:
#1 Grease clogs
Grease buildup is one of the most dangerous but most common types of clogs that restaurants can face. Even gourmet restaurants deal with plenty of grease and have a grease trap that needs to be regularly serviced and cleaned. The worse the grease buildup gets, the more costly the problem will be.
#2 Toilet clogs
When you’re dealing with the public, you’ll have a lot of different people coming in and out of your space. It might not be pleasant to consider, but when you have a bathroom accessible to multiple people, clogs are bound to happen. You have little control over what goes into your toilets at your restaurant and customers can be absent-minded when it comes to this. If you experience a toilet clog, you’ll need to get it fixed ASAP so that you don’t have to close down the washroom and close down service for the night. Put up signs in the bathroom reminding customers of what’s safe to put in the toilets, keep the number of an emergency plumber handy, and have a plunger nearby.
#3 Sink clogs
Grease isn’t the only thing that can end up in a restaurant’s sink. Food debris will often get washed down the sink in the dishwashing pit as plates and bowls come through. Eventually, this build-up can easily cause a clog. Any restaurant owner knows that your dishwashing pit going down in the middle of service is going to mean chaos. If the water stops going down the drain, you’ll want to find commercial drain services ASAP to get you back up and running. Before th clog happens, prevent it with a drain catch to stop most of the food from going down the drain.
#4 Sewer system clogs
Sometimes the reason for your neverending clogs goes deeper than bad bathroom runs and grease clogs. Sometimes, the problem is with your sewer. Sewer system issues can arise when you’re running a restaurant in an older area and working with old or outdated plumbing. While the plumbing that’s being directly used by your restaurant was probably updated or at least inspected before your business opened, the pipes that lead in and out or your business may not have had any TLC for awhile. If your restaurant is constantly suffering from different clogs with no identifiable cause, then you’re going to need to call in the pros.
