Grease Trap Pumping Frequency: How Often Should a Restaurant Near Gwinnett Pump?

Alcovy Septic gets asked about grease trap pumping frequency by kitchens all over east Gwinnett, and the honest answer starts with an awkward fact: Gwinnett County does not publish an interval. The county runs a real FOG program with real enforcement, but the number you schedule against comes from somewhere else. Here’s where, and what an inspector checks.

What Gwinnett’s FOG program requires

Gwinnett County established its fats, oils and grease prevention program in 2000, operating under the federal Clean Water Act and the Georgia Water Quality Control Act, with a FOG ordinance that “outlines steps restaurants and food service establishments must take to keep FOG out of the County’s system.”

Two things about scope. It’s broader than restaurants — the county applies it to food service establishments, daycares, assisted living facilities, schools, hotels and hospitals, essentially any commercial kitchen. And the county’s public page sets out the framework and ordinance authority but no fixed pumping frequency, so the interval comes from your permit conditions and from what the trap actually needs.

That leaves a scheduling problem, which the industry solved by borrowing the nearest published standard.

The Atlanta standard everyone benchmarks to

The City of Atlanta’s Grease Management Ordinance is the most specific enforceable FOG maintenance code in metro Atlanta, and most regional service contracts are written around it. It legally binds establishments discharging into Atlanta’s sewer system — not Gwinnett kitchens — but it is the reference point.

Section 154-297.03 requires:

Operating depth under that code is measured from the outlet water elevation to the bottom of the trap. The 25 percent rule is the one that governs: 90 days is a ceiling, not a target, and a fryer-heavy kitchen can hit 25 percent in half that. Atlanta’s sizing rules are worth knowing too: § 154-297.01 requires new outdoor installations to have two 1,500-gallon traps in series — 3,000 gallons total — with exceptions for limited space or seating of 100 or fewer.

Setting your own interval

Start at the benchmark, then adjust on evidence:

1. Start at 90 days outdoors, 14 days indoors — before you have data.
2. Measure at every service. Record grease and solids depth against operating depth. That’s your 25 percent test.
3. Over 25 percent at the visit? Shorten the interval. Fried food, wok lines, bakeries and dishwashers discharging to an outdoor trap all push it up.
4. Consistently under 10 percent? You can stretch it — after confirming your permit doesn’t fix the frequency.
5. Re-test after a menu or volume change.

A trap undersized for the kitchen can’t be scheduled out of trouble. If you’re at 25 percent in five weeks on an outdoor trap, the trap is too small — a plan-review conversation, not a service-frequency one.

What happens when a trap overflows into the line

A trap past its capacity stops being a trap. Grease carries through, cools in the lateral, and builds a hard ring on the pipe wall until the line closes. The kitchen then floods from the floor drains — usually mid-service, usually on a weekend.

The fix is mechanical, not chemical. High-pressure line jetting scours the grease ring off the pipe wall; a snake only bores a hole that closes again in weeks. The difference is covered in pumping vs cleaning vs jetting. Pump the trap first, so debris has somewhere to go.

A blocked line can also back up inside — the first-response steps are the same as for a septic backup. Beyond the mess, a grease discharge into the public system is an enforceable violation that puts your health inspection and discharge permit in play at once. On septic rather than sewer — common on the US-29 and GA-20 corridors — a grease overflow reaches a drain field never designed for it, a far more expensive failure. Commercial septic pumping and grease trap pumping are usually scheduled together at those sites.

Records, and what it costs

Keep the manifest for every service: date, trap type and size, gallons removed, disposal method and site, hauler details and permit number, and signatures — retained on site for three years under the Atlanta model. Even where a county doesn’t specify a format, a three-year file of dated manifests turns an inspection into a five-minute conversation.

On price, Homeyou’s September 2026 Atlanta data puts grease trap cleaning in a $96 to $696 band — the spread between a small indoor unit and a 1,500-gallon outdoor interceptor, not a single job. Treat it as a market range: trap size, access, how overdue it is and hose run all move it. Confirm the number before the truck rolls.

Check who is hauling, too. Georgia certifies septage pumpers and permits the companies that haul — see who can legally pump septic tanks in Georgia and our full service list. Kitchens across Lilburn, Snellville and the Lawrenceville corridor run standing schedules for these reasons; to set one up, get in touch.

Bottom line

Gwinnett requires FOG control but publishes no interval, so your permit and your trap set the schedule. Use Atlanta’s code as the benchmark — 90 days outdoors, 14 days indoors, sooner whenever grease and solids hit 25 percent of operating depth — while being clear that’s a City of Atlanta rule, not a Gwinnett one. Insist on complete pump-outs, skip the enzyme products, and keep three years of manifests on site.