In our last blog, we discussed our various distributors and how we prefer to work shoulder to shoulder with them to design custom solutions for our clients. We enjoy being an active part of the safety-creating process. This year, we want to use our blogs to reflect on some of the ways we have worked with our distributors to give our clients the best solutions for their rooftop grease containment systems.
Our case study series is going to be very educational as each rooftop requires a different solution. This month, we are focusing on the roof pictured below that was using a pickle bucket to capture their grease output.
As you can see, the method this company was using here was causing a ton of grease to spill over onto the roof. This is problematic for many reasons. One, a pickle bucket is a pretty small container for the amount of grease output. This means either two things: one, someone would need to empty the pickle bucket daily/weekly in order to keep it from overflowing onto the roof or two, the grease will overflow onto the roof often. Grease overflow on the roof is problematic for both the restaurant and the employees going up to the roof. This can cause major damage on the roof which will require costly repairs. Employees can easily slip and fall on grease, injuring themselves in the process.
To combat this solution, our first fix was to apply our product, Grease Away, to help emulsify and neutralize the liquid grease. This process takes over 72 hours and makes it so the emulsion can be washed away with a hose and still follow EPA standards for runoff. See the photo below to see our Grease Away in action.
To get rid of the pickle bucket, we used our QuickFit Hinge and GreaseBox. Our hinge and GreaseBox address important NFPA 96 Standards. The problem here is a pickle bucket was not large enough to follow NFPA 96 Standards as you cannot have a grease receptacle that holds more than one gallon of liquid grease. It is also a flawed containment system as grease and oil sit on top of water so when you use an open bucket, rain water can get in and overflow the grease onto the roof.
The cost of these violations is two-fold: first, EPA fines for introducing grease into the water system could be as high as ten-thousand dollars per violation: second, and more financially devastating, is the repair and replacement of the commercial rooftop which could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Two of the NFPA 96 Standards that our solutions for this particular situation fix are the following:
The reasons we chose these two solutions particularly, as you can see, the exhaust system is up against a parquet wall so some of our solutions that are 360-degrees would not work. Our three solutions for this pickle bucket issue cleanly, safely, and following NFPA 96 Standards fixed this roofs problem.
We have a variety of different solutions to fit any rooftop need. We assess the parameters of the roof, the output of the system, and decide which of our one or combined solutions will help keep our customer the most safe and compliant with NFPA 96 Standards. If your roof is giving you problems, trust Omni to give you the perfect solution.
