When pouring grease down the kitchen sink, which would be better to flush it down with, warm or cold water?

Question

When I am done cooking with foods that have grease, I pour the extra grease down the kitchen sink and I just need to know what is better to flush it down with as far as cold water and warm water?

Answer 1

Don't wash it down the sink at all...just wait until it cools and congeals, then scrape it into the trash with a paper towel.

If you simply must pour it down the sick, start the hot water and let it run for at least a minute, then pour the grease down the sink, and keep the hot water on for at least another minute. Otherwise it'll congeal in the pipes, causing an easily avoidable repair.

Answer 2

Number one; don't pour grease down the sink. Scoop it out with paper towels, or heat it up, liquefy, carefully pour into a dry can or jar then trash it after it cools.
Use cold water for excess. Hot may seem to work, but the grease then coats the walls of the drains, also will eventually smell bad. If having trouble with this first soak the pan in very hot soapy water. Let it cool, then drain.
The objective is to have the grease congeal (cold) so it 'tumbles" through the drains rather than sticking to the sides.

Answer 3

This answer is for most singe residential dwellings. Whether you have sewers or septics (or cesspool) doesn't affect the answer; though if you put a lot of grease into a septic tank it is a good idea to add a bacterial agent. First, try not to put grease down your drain. But if you do, NEVER run hot water to clear it out; always use cold water - as cold as possible! Hot water will keep grease liquified. Since running any amount of water after grease will not totally clear the grease out of your drains, the liquification of the grease will cause it to build up in the drains (kind of like cholesterol in the arteries). I know that some people assert that you do in fact want to liquify the grease, but this is based on a misunderstanding of how efficiently the drainage system of a house normally works. (Talk to any person who installs/maintains cesspools and they will explain this.) You should run cold water because this will cause the grease to coagulate. While some of it will still remain in the drains, most of it will run off with each usage of the system. The idea of running hot water after grease is based on the faulty premise that hot water "cleans" better. Yes, hot boiling water does sterilize things, but that is not the aim when clearing grease from the drains.

Answer 4

When I was a kid I washed dishes at a busy country club for a part time job. We had a Grease heater that would basically boil water in a seperate tank at 3 AM then empty it down the drain pipes. The idea was to melt any grease build up. It worked like a charm, but it ran daily.

Unless you want to boil water to chase your cooking oil, put it in the trash or save it in a can and sell it as biodiesel. to some bloke. Properly thinned, you can put cooking oil and grease into a diesel powered car. The car would smell like fried food when running, but it does work.

Hot tap water won't come close to hot enough to prevent a grease plug from forming. Who has the time to sit there while you run scalding hot water down the drain?

Answer 5

Better to let it sit & cool, then put it in the trash. Pouring grease down the sink will cause clogging - even if you flush with really hot water!

Answer 6

You should never pour grease down a sink unless you want to call a plumber later due to poor drainage.....if some grease does happen to go down the drain use hot water.

Answer 7

I pour the grease into an empty metal can and let it cool. Usually you end up with a mixture of solid and liquid. Then I pour the liquid down the drain and put the solid in the trash.

If you don't want to wait for it to cool, I'd say hot water so it is less likely to form a clog.

Answer 8

It would be best not to wash it down the sink at all....that's the way drains get clogged. Instead keep an extra can/container to the side to keep all the extra grease in and get rid of it when it is convenient to you at a designated landfill that takes grease.

Answer 9

You should not be pouring grease down your kitchen sink, EVER! Pour it into a can or plastic container and throw it in the garbage.

Answer 10

You shouldn't really do this because it will cause havok with your pipes & the environment (see link below). I recently got a 'fat trap'. You pour your used oil into a melt proof tub, mix in some seeds & put it out for the birds to feast on by hanging it on a string or place it on a bird table.

If you listen to half these guys you'll be wasting detergent & hot water... it takes more energy to do that!