Grease trap backed up in the kitchen? We answer the phone.

What counts as an emergency

Slow drain in the three-compartment sink. Standing water at the floor sink near the dish pit. Sewage smell coming up through a floor drain during service. Grease backing up out of the trap lid itself. Any of these means the interceptor or the line feeding it is either full, blocked, or failing, and it needs a truck today, not next week's scheduled visit.

Slow drains during a Friday dinner rush are the single most common call we get from kitchens along FM 1463 and the I-10 corridor. Grease cools and hardens fast once volume spikes, and a trap that was fine on Tuesday can choke by Saturday.

How emergency response works

1. Call in. Tell us the address, what's backing up, and whether it's affecting service right now.
2. Triage on the phone. We ask about trap size, last pump date, and where the water's showing up so the truck arrives with the right hose and pump for the job.
3. Dispatch. On-site inside 2 hours during business hours for active backups. After-hours calls get a callback and an honest window, not a guess.
4. Evacuate and diagnose. Full pump-down first. If the trap's clear but the line's still slow, that's a jetting call, not a pump call.
5. Manifest and report. Same paperwork as a scheduled visit, plus a note on what caused the backup so it doesn't repeat next month.
6. Cadence fix. If the emergency happened because the schedule was too loose for your volume, we tighten the cadence going forward.

What makes an emergency call harder

A trap that's been neglected past 25% wetted height for months packs solid grease that has to be broken up by hand before a vacuum hose will move it, and that can double the time on site. Backups that have already pushed grease into the line past the trap need jetting on top of the pump, not instead of it. Locked lids painted over or bolted shut from a remodel cost real minutes with a grinder before we can even get the hose in. And a trap under a walk-in cooler or behind a beer cooler rack means moving equipment before work starts, every single time.

Duration and price

Most emergency pump-outs during business hours run $300 to $650 depending on how full the trap is and how hard it is to reach. After-hours or weekend dispatch runs $450 to $900. A straightforward emergency visit takes 45 to 90 minutes on site. Add jetting if the line's still slow after the pump, priced separately, see hydro-jetting.

Serving Katy, Cinco Ranch, Fulshear, Brookshire, and Richmond. Outside that radius, call anyway, we'll tell you straight if we can make it in time.

Emergency service questions

How fast can you actually get here?

Inside 2 hours during business hours for an active backup, most days faster if a truck's already in Katy or Cinco Ranch. After hours, we call you back within minutes and give you a real window, not a placeholder.

Do you charge more for after-hours or weekend calls?

Yes, honestly. After-hours dispatch runs $450 to $900 against $300 to $650 during business hours. We quote the number on the phone before the truck rolls, no surprise on the invoice.

What if the pump-out doesn't fix the backup?

Then the problem's in the line past the trap, not the trap itself, and it needs jetting. We'll tell you on site if that's the case rather than pumping the same trap twice and hoping.

Will an emergency call get us in trouble with the city?

No. An emergency pump-out is a normal part of running a kitchen. What matters is the manifest and the fix, both of which we hand you before we leave.