PlumbingBossPro Blog — Property Managers & Commercial

Restaurant Grease-Line Jetting on a Schedule: Every 14 or 30 Days Without the Reminder Call

Every restaurant kitchen sends grease down the drain, no matter how careful the staff is. Over a few weeks it coats the inside of the line, narrows it, and eventually stops it cold — usually in the middle of a busy service. The fix is jetting the line on a schedule, before the backup. For a plumbing company, that schedule is some of the most dependable work there is.

Why Restaurants Want a Schedule

Apartment buildings, covered in Apartment Building Plumbing: Units, Common Areas and One Building Record, have plumbing that fails slowly. Restaurant kitchen lines fail on a clock. A busy kitchen that fries all day may need its line jetted every couple of weeks. A quieter cafe might be fine on a monthly visit.

Restaurant owners learn quickly that an emergency drain call on a Saturday night costs more than the plumbing. They lose covers, they comp meals, and the kitchen staff stands around. A jetting visit every 14 or 30 days at a time that suits the kitchen is an easy sell once they have had one bad night.

Setting the Interval

In PlumbingBossPro, recurring work is set by minimum days between visits. For a restaurant grease line, that is typically 14 or 30, but you can set whatever the kitchen needs. Each restaurant address gets its own plan, so a busy burger place can be on 14 days while the coffee shop next door is on 30.

The right interval is a judgment call you make from what you see in the line. If the tech finds heavy buildup at every 30-day visit, it is worth suggesting a shorter interval. If the line is close to clean each time, the restaurant may be able to stretch it. Note what you saw on the job so the next conversation has evidence behind it.

The Waiting List Does the Remembering

Once the plan is set, nobody has to remember the next visit. When a restaurant's jetting comes due, it appears on the Waiting List, a live map and list of every visit ready to schedule. Pins are colored by status: not due yet, due now, and overdue past a 7-day grace.

The office checks the Waiting List, sees four restaurants due this week, and puts them on the jetting van. No sticky notes, no calendar reminders, no restaurant owner calling to ask why you have not been out. When the restaurant calls you instead of the other way around, the schedule has already slipped.

Routing Around Kitchen Hours

Jetting a line while the kitchen is running is a bad idea for everyone. Most restaurants want the work done before prep starts or after close. Access notes on each address hold the specifics:

• “Kitchen quiet 6am to 9am. Back door, ring bell.”
• “After close only, after 11pm. Night manager lets you in.”
• “Cleanout is in the alley behind the dumpster pad.”

The dispatch board lets you build an early-morning route of restaurants on one van, set the order by hand or auto-route Closest First from the shop, and print a route sheet. The tech's phone shows the same order. For more on timing, see Scheduling Commercial Plumbing Work Around Business Hours.

Proof the Line Was Done

The owner is rarely there at 6am. The kitchen manager might be. Either way, before-and-after photos from the tech's phone, saved with the job, show that the work happened. A short job note helps too: “Heavy grease at 40 feet, jetted clear, recommend staying on 14 days.”

If the restaurant has a kitchen manager who handles day-to-day issues, two-way texting from the office keeps them in the loop. A text the day before (“We're jetting tomorrow at 6:30”) means someone opens the back door and the floor drain is clear.

Billing a Restaurant or a Group

A single restaurant can be on card on file, charged when the tech taps Complete. A restaurant group with three or four locations usually wants one bill. Set the account to Monthly, and every jetting visit and service call across every location goes on one statement, each line labeled with its address.

Add jetting to your service list once, with your own price, and every visit picks it up as a line item. If the tech also clears a floor drain or snakes a hand sink while on site, the office adds that line before the job is billed.

Grease-line jetting will not make a plumbing company rich on its own, but a dozen restaurants on 14- and 30-day schedules make the calendar a lot more predictable. For the rest of the commercial side, go back to the PlumbingBossPro commercial plumbing software page.