How to Dissolve Grease in Your Sink and Sewer Line

Washing dishes is fun and therapeutic because it gives us time to exercise our hands, a break from work and school, and produces healthy utensils for daily eating.

However, the fun stops when food scraps, including a mixture of butter, cooking oils, dish soap, and meat fats, contribute to a grease-clogged drain.

When pushed to the limits, grease clogs can damage sewers and force you to get much-needed help from a professional drain cleaner or need full-blown sewer line repair.

Yet, there are home remedies you can follow to remove grease from a grease-clogged drain. We will give you the complete guide in this article.

How to Remove Grease From a Grease-Clogged Drain: Best Methods

Having a grease-clogged drain can result in issues that can impair your sewers and even create a space for harmful bacteria to fester.

To stop the above-mentioned from happening, here are the methods you can use to clean grease from a grease-clogged drain:

1) Pouring Hot Water Down The Drain Pipes

The fat, oil, grit, and grease clog block your drain pipes as they accumulate, cool down, and solidify. With this, efficiently removing it means pouring boiling water down the drain pipes.

As the hot water gets in contact with the clogs in your kitchen drain, the former loosens and dissolves the latter.

However, it is not always applicable to all types of pipes. As boiling hot water may damage the pipes listed below:

• Rubber
• PVC Plastic

You can only use this method with pipes made of iron, metal, copper, ceramics, and galvanized steel.

2) Vinegar and Hot Water

The mixture of boiling hot water heating and vinegar removes grease in a clogged drain as it is an effective homemade drain cleaner.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can achieve this less-corrosive homemade solution:

• Start by putting 2 cups of boiling hot water down the drain
• Proceed by putting 2 cups of white vinegar (you can also use apple cider vinegar or any vinegar available)
• Put a drain plug over your vinegar-infused drain pipes and let it soak for five to seven minutes
• Complete the method by pouring another 2 cups of boiling hot water

However, you need to ensure that you did not apply any chemical drain cleaner before doing this, as their mixture can produce a harmful chemical reaction.

FUN FACT: Vinegar can also kill tree roots near a sewer line, which is beneficial before replacing sewers from the house to the street, as sewer lines can be very deep near the roots of nearby trees.

3) Plunger

The most common and affordable technique you can do to resolve grease-clogged drain issues is to use a plunger.

Plungers are drain cleaners usually made of rubber that use suctioning to clear out a blocked drain. You can use plungers correctly using these steps:

• Fill the sink with warm water until the suction cup is fully submerged
• Then, cover the drain pipe with the plunger
• Firmly push the plunger down
• Pull the plunger vertically
• Repeat the pushing and pulling actions until the drain pipe is working; add extra warm water if needed

4) Shooting Compressed Air Down the Drain Pipe

Compressed air can save a grease-clogged drain, and you, from your misery! Yet, before celebrating, you must know how to use it appropriately.

This is how it goes:

• First, remove the standing water from your kitchen sink using a plastic container. Standing water refers to the stagnant water caused by the grease-clogged drain.
• Then, use an air compressor. Put the gun wand into the drain system as far as your wand can reach, and release the compressed air for three minutes.
• Turn off the air compressor, remove the wand, and check if the grease-clogged pipe is drained.
• If it's partially drained, do the process all over again.

However, remember that this process, if incorrectly done, can lead to extensive damage to pipes and pipe walls.

5) Hydro Sewer Jet

A hydro sewer jet is a high-pressure method that uses water to clear out a grease-clogged drain or flush out objects from a residential or corporate building's kitchen sink.

To make it work, you put the snake, or the cleaning hose with a nozzle, inside the opening of the grease-clogged pipe. Then, spray the hydro sewer jet.

Remember that because of the high pressure, some water may backfire. A professional drain cleaner should thus wear full protective gear to avoid the backsplash.

Where Does Grease Come From?

Grease accumulate in draining systems, causing a blocked drain and other drain issues that can damage the pipe, limit the flow, cause stagnant water, foul odor, health issues, and even soil corrosion when not addressed immediately.

But where does grease come from? Well, there are two primary sources of grease, and it is particularly apparent when washing dishes, and these are: soap and food scraps.

Soap

Soaps on the market are usually made of coconut, olive, animal, and plant oils. With these types, the possibility of persistent grease clogs is higher, especially when used regularly.

However, for soap to produce such disturbing grease-clogged draining systems, it must be paired with food clog buildup, which we will elaborate on further in the following sub-section.

Food Scraps

Then, there are food scraps. These are defined as foods scrapped and not eaten because they are inedible or have been left over because a person feels full.

Some prevalent scrapped foods are:

• Egg-shells
• Dairy products (fat)
• Chemicals in drink can contents (sodium bicarbonate/sodium carbonate)
• Cooking oils and liquids
• Vegetable fats 
• Fruit peels
• Sauces (fat)

When you wash dishes and pour the egg shells, vegetable fats from your pans, and others directly down the drain, chances are these common by-products of cooking will have a buildup of fat, grit, and oil in your drains.

Once these solidify, they will result in the following:

• Clog pipes
• Slow or no draining at all
• Foul smell
• High water bills
• Gurgling noises

Where Does Grease Accumulate?

Grease accumulates in the pipe or sewers. From the sink, leftover food and soap trail your drain and solidify there.

With this, a clog only happens slowly (unless you pour everything all at once) because grease clogs the middle part of the system, and this is where the blockage usually happens.

As time passes, the clamp of grease becomes more apparent and eventually causes slow to zero draining and, worse, stagnant water.

How to Prevent Grease from Causing a Clogged Drain

Although a grease-clogged system is stressful, you can still prevent it through different methods that we will elaborate on in this section.

Use a Dishwasher

If you have the means, it is better to ditch washing by hand. Instead, wash your dishes in a dishwasher because it pulverizes or breaks down leftover food to flush out and flow directly through the pipes.

Add a Fat Trap

A fat trap can be another clog-prevention alternative for your home. It is a machine that traps fats, oils, grit, and grease from your sink before all these flow through your pipe.

Three layers in a fat trap house different leftovers after they pass through your sink, and these are:

• The topmost part is for fats, oils, and grease
• The middle part is for wastewater
• The bottom part is for solid objects

However, this pricey option can range from $250 to $1000. Nonetheless, it can still help you save money in the long run from expensive sewer line replacement and regular plumbing or sewer line cleaning. 

Use Fat-Free Soaps for Washing

As mentioned earlier, some soaps are made of fats. But there are still many options on the market for non-toxic fat-free soaps.

Using non-toxic fat-free soap can help limit the existence of clogs in the drain as they do not have oil, fat, and other common by-products of food with an unwanted chemical substance that can trigger clogging.

Keep Food Scraps Away from Your Sink

Prevention is better than cure. With this, ensure that scraps are away from sinks before flushing water through your kitchenware and down the pipe.

Before you soak or pour water over your plates and utensils, you must separate the scraps first. You can do this by putting everything in a plastic container and throwing it properly in the trash bin after the washing is done.

Reuse Cooking Oils

If you have used oil once, you can reuse it for another session. To do it, you must follow these steps:

• In the pan you used for cooking, let the oil cool down
• After a few minutes, use a mesh strainer as you transfer it to a stainless steel container
• Store properly and use again

FAQs

We know you have something in mind that needs clarification, and to do that, we have answered some of your FAQs in this section!

What is the Best Drain Cleaner for Grease?

The best drain cleaner for grease is vinegar and those which has these characteristics:

• Can melt the thinnest to the thickest grease mixture found in the pipe
• Can melt grease, oil, and fat even without boiled water mixture in the sink
• Those with biodegradable surfactants prevent grease in the future
• Less corrosive

How Do You Flush Grease Out of a Clogged Drain

You can flush grease out through the different grease-removal methods stated above, such as:

• Use drain cleaners to clear away grease
• A mixture of boiling water and vinegar removes the grease
• Pour hot water down the pipe
• Ask a professional drain cleaner
• Use an air compressor or hydro jets 
• Use a plunger over the sink (ensure the suction cups sink)

For your clogged toilet and septic tank, you can also try trenchless technology's pipe bursting as a backup, surveying the drain using camera inspection and a bursting tool to flush out a grease-clogged drain efficiently.

Conclusion

Knowing how to dissolve grease in sewers will surely help you have a sanitary sewer and sewage system.

This can give you a kitchen with no foul odors, overflowing wastewater, soil corrosion and flood on your lawn and landscaping premises, and other clogging issues.

Now that you know all the information on dissolving grease, we know you can quickly prevent or remedy your sink problems. 

But if you want to refresh your knowledge, you can always check out this article!