Cleaning the Streets is Easy with a Vacuum Truck!

From industrial tanks and reservoirs to bustling city streets, a vacuum truck cleans and hauls away waste with ease. A vacuum truck is simply a truck that is equipped with a tank and a pump, which is primarily designed to suck up liquid, sludge, slurries, dirt, and other material both above and below ground. The waste is then transported to a disposal or treatment site. The most common material that vacuum trucks remove is sewage — human excreta mixed with water — but they are also a great way to clean streets. Here are the four benefits of choosing Vacuum Truck Services in Houston, TX.

1. Versatility

Not all vacuum trucks are created equally. There is a wide variety of models and makers that suit different cleaning jobs better than others. You can choose between both wet and dry debris vacuum truck services in Houston, TX. These industrial vehicles are equipped with water tanks that can hold up to 1,500 gallons of waste, and debris tanks that can hold up to 2,000 gallons. Vacuum trucks are also equipped with odor control and spill prevention apparatuses to ensure there is no possibility of the public being exposed to harmful or hazardous materials.

2. Safety

A vacuum truck is not only safe for a properly trained crew to operate, but it improves safety for communities and animals. Vacuum truck services in Houston, TX, remove trash and waste that litters the street and settles in gutters. Litter can easily fly across the front or back window of a car and startle a driver or obstruct the view out a window. It is also possible for drivers to mistake garbage for an animal or other object causing them to swerve, so it is important that upkeep be maintained to reduce the possibility of an accident or collision. Maintaining clean streets also reduces the risk of wildlife or pets consuming trash or debris that could be detrimental to their health. There is less chance of animals being killed or injured by cars on the roadways when debris is removed.

3. Environmental Protection

Not only do vacuum truck services in Houston, TX, make communities look better but the regular cleaning also protects the environment. Hazardous waste and metal particles are often left behind from trash and passing vehicles. If the waste and particles are not properly dealt with, they can cause a lot of harm. This debris can be absorbed into the ground, and travel via rain and wind into rivers, creeks, bays, and beaches.

4. Reduce Damage

Abrasion is one of the most common causes of automobile finish damage. If left unchecked, debris can cause serious damage to cars, especially the undercoating. Vacuum truck services in Houston, TX, reduce the risk of vehicle damage and also eliminate potential damage to roadways. Storm drains can quickly become clogged if garbage is ignored and allowed to pile up. This causes runoff pathways to be blocked and water is able to build up on streets, which over time, can lead to erosion. Clean up is especially important in areas where construction or developmental crews are working. Visit our website for more information.

Wastewater Lift Station – How Does it Work?

What is a Lift Station?

Most homeowners or business owners don’t often think about wastewater lift stations until something goes wrong, but wastewater lift stations are crucial to the proper disposal and storage of sewage and wastewater.

A wastewater lift station is used to pump wastewater or sewage from a lower level to a higher level when the gradient of the area doesn’t allow for a natural flow. This is how it works:

Sewage is stored and fed into a pit and once it reaches a certain level electrical instruments will recognize that the pit is full and automatically activate the pump. When that happens, the sewage will be pumped out to its next destination. It’s a simple system, but if it’s not maintained properly, it can cause a lot of complex and costly issues.

The Elements of a Wastewater Lift Station

There are two main components of a wastewater lift station: the controls and the wet well. The controls do just that: control the lift station, acting as the “brains” of the station. The wet well is a basin where the wastewater is discharged. The wet well also holds the pumps for the lift station.

If you have a wastewater lift station for your Houston home or office, it’s important that you ensure it is maintained regularly to avoid any costly and time-consuming disruptions in its service. You want to prevent any clogging or back-ups, and ensure your wastewater lift station in Houston is regularly cleaned.

Why is Regular Maintenance Important?

The majority of wastewater lift stations are stored underground to prevent contagion and health risks. Sewage, after all, can release poisonous gases like methane and hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere, and can also spread pathogens and diseases. It’s crucial for your health and for the health of others that sewage is always properly contained and disposed of, so it’s important that all sewage disposal systems are working and properly maintained to avoid the spread of diseases and harmful chemicals.

Consult a professional to take a look at your wastewater lift station in Houston to ensure that all the elements of the station are working as they should. You should also hire someone to ensure proper maintenance of your lift station on a regular basis. Proper maintenance of a lift station can save you a lot of headache and money in the future, as disruptions to sewage disposal systems can be very costly, stressful, and time-consuming. Wells need to be pumped out and cleaned to avoid clogging and build-up, valves need to be greased, and the lift station should be properly inspected and regularly cleaned to ensure optimal performance. A professional drain specialist will also check to see if all the electrical equipment is working properly.

Don’t wait until there’s a problem with your wastewater lift station before you talk to a drain specialist. Avoid the future hassle and financial cost by hiring a professional and experienced drain specialist to inspect and maintain your wastewater lift station in Houston. You’ll be happy you did.

How to Keep Grease Trap Clean and Safe

Grease traps are often a major hassle for restaurants and commercial kitchens, but their regular cleaning and maintenance results in a much better experience with them. Grease trap cleaning is very important, as it keeps the grease traps functional, keeping fats, oils or grease (FOG) from entering the public sewer system, and also keeps your pipes flowing and prevents backups or noxious gases from leaking out.

Stopping Those Nasty Clogs

Grease traps, in general, help keep your business’s pipes flowing, but also helps the public sewers by preventing FOG from entering the system and clogging it up. When you pour FOGs down the drain, they will cool down and solidify, resulting in a mass growing on the inside of your pipes until it fully blocks the pipe. If these FOG make it to your municipal sewers, this can cause a blockage that affects entire city blocks and results in you being fined heavily to pay for the cleanup. This is why grease trap cleaning is very important. Depending on the size of your business, traps, and laws in your area, you may need to clean your traps at least once a month to keep everything flowing properly.

Cleaning Your Grease Traps

Ideally, when you need a grease trap cleaning, you should consider using a professional cleaning company like Drane Ranger. While you can do the job yourself, you need to ensure you have all the necessary equipment, such as respirators, rubber gloves, coveralls, scraper, wrench, bucket & scoop, and a shop vacuum to suck everything out. Doing it yourself is going to be very unpleasant, and while you can clean out most of the FOGs and such from your grease trap, you likely do not have the equipment and expertise to deal with the intake and outtake outlets properly, or the capability to do maintenance checks on all the parts of the system to ensure that nothing needs to be repaired or replaced.

Safety is a Concern with Grease Traps

If you don’t perform regular grease trap cleaning, or do the bare minimum required, you may be risking your staff or customer safety. While grease traps gather FOG, they also gather up food particles that make their way down your sinks. These food particles over time are going to break down and start letting off noxious sulfur fumes, which not only smell bad but can be a health hazard.

What Not To Do With Grease Traps

Many may think of doing something to try to delay the next time they need a grease trap cleaning, but some of these things can be harmful to your grease trap, pipes, and sewers. Do not pour boiling water into the trap; this will liquefy any FOG and send it into the sewers to solidify again, causing a very expensive backup in the future. Do not put chemicals, bleach, additives, or drain cleaners into a trap. These will destroy the bacteria that is in the trap breaking down the FOG, and risks environmental damage. Do not add extra biological agents, enzymes or bugs to the system, as these may emulsify the grease and allow it to pass straight into the municipal sewer.

Hire a Professional Cleaner for Your Grease Trap Cleaning

To ensure you get a proper clean, and proper maintenance and repairs to your grease trap system, contact the professionals at Drane Ranger today to book an appointment for cleaning your grease traps.

What Happens Due to Poor Septic Tank Maintenance

Without proper septic tank maintenance, you run the risk of your septic tank failing. Not treating and disposing of sewage in a sound environmental or safe fashion can cause the leakage of substantial amounts of chemicals such as ammonia or fecal coliform into surface water and nearby wells.

Septic tanks are the same as other major appliances, and they need routine septic tank maintenance. The purpose of a septic tank is to stop solids from entering the drainfield. If they reach this area, they’ll clog the small spores in the gravel and soil below; resulting in sewage backing up into your house or surfacing in your yard.

There are signs to watch for to make sure it doesn’t happen, but you should never let your tank get to this stage due to lack of septic tank maintenance.

Signs You Need Emergency Septic Tank Maintenance

• Your pipes aren’t clogged, but your drains empty slowly.

• Sewage backs up into your house.

• You noticed a smelly wet spot in your yard.

• Your septic tank pipes to a stream or ditch.

• Your sink or washing machine is piped to a stream or road.

• When the ground is wet from rainfall, you experience issues with your drains.

• A wet spot appears in your yard when you’re doing laundry.

• You need to pump your septic tank more than once a year.

• The grass around or over your septic tank is greener than the rest of your lawn.

If you’re experiencing any of the above, you should contact a septic tank maintenance company as soon as possible. As we mentioned earlier, the best practice is to care for your tank on a regular basis. If you find this idea distasteful, the good news is you don’t have to do it yourself because there are companies who offer this service.

A septic tank maintenance company can inspect the effluent filter or sanitary tee outlet to make sure it’s functioning properly as well.

How Does a Septic Tank Work?

To understand the importance of septic tank maintenance more fully perhaps it would be easier to first understand what they do and how they work. Simply put, a septic tank is an underground watertight tank that’s usually made of plastic or concrete, and it’s divided into two compartments.

Your septic tank receives all household or business sewage and separates the liquid part of waste from the solid portion. The liquid portion passes out of the tank after around 24-hours. Your septic tank has three purposes: first it collects the solid materials, secondly it allows some bacterial breakdown of waste materials to happen, and third, it acts as a storage chamber for undigested solid materials that need removal. This is where regular septic tank maintenance comes in.

To help with septic tank maintenance, you should also check your plumbing fixtures regularly for leaking toilet cisterns or leaking taps, and have them repaired.

If you’re looking for a company specializing in septic tank maintenance in Houston, we can help. You can call us to make scheduled visits to your property to inspect and maintain your sewage system. For more information, visit our website.