Hi there,

We are in the post-home inspection and attorney review on a home purchase. In our inspection, our inspector noted that the catch basin (grease trap? kitchen sink drains out to it) in the back yard had some damaged bricks/deterioration that would need to be repaired. We requested that seller make the repairs, but they came back with a refusal to do so. We are now at the point of looking for an estimate for the repair/replacement of the structure.

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How serious is this repair? Is this something that could turn catastrophic if left alone?

C) Edited by Plbg Staff

I guess we are trying to evaluate if this is a deal breaker for us. It's an older home (1904) and we certainly expect that there will be quirks and things we need to deal with, but taking on a major repair (will we need to reroute the drain? redo all of our plumbing to main sewer line?) it may need additional consideration.


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Check with the city. When I lived in the Chicago area, our repair was to run the pipe through the basin and collapse the bricks in and fill the hole.

Thanks - I did call the Village of Brookfield, and they indicated that the catch basin is totally fine to have and can be repaired, does not need to be collapsed or rerun to another/main sewer line.

So I suppose now I need to find ballpark range for replacement/repair of the existing catch-basin. Any recommendations?

You asked the wrong question. You should have asked if it is REQUIRED, because they are more problems than they are worth, and it is better if they can be eliminated.



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So you'd recommend bypassing and collapsing the catch basin altogether? The man from the village did say that some people eliminated them.

So I imagine that should be on my question list- cost to repair/replace, and cost to eliminate it entirely?

What is the main issue with them? Just having to get them cleaned out, or other issues? I realize it's a grease trap, but we typically don't put excess grease down the drain anyway. Does it just get gross out there from General kitchen stuff down the drain? Thanks for your advice, I'll explore elimination as another option.



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The cost to eliminate is involves installing a piece of pipe from one side to the other. It is brick so a heavy hammer will collapse it inwaed, (only the top has to be done), then fill the rest of the hole with dirt.

HJ, I read your threads on grease traps - I have a building with 4 units - each pair drains down a kitchen waste stack and they used to go into the grease trap (as did the laundry sink). I rerouted the kitchen waste stacks and laundry sink drain to the main stack, bypassing the grease basin, and connected the downspout tile inlet (from the roof) to the outlet of the grease trap with a pipe. We thought we counted and tested all the pipes coming in to the grease trap, but during a recent deluge we have new water coming up thru the floor / wall joint at several points around the basement perimeter. Never happened before. I am now thinking there must be a perimeter foundation drain tile system that tied into one of the kitchen waste laterals or into the grease trap below where we could see. YIKES! Any idea if these old (1930s) buildings had their perimeter drain tiles empty into the grease trap? This is one of several buildings we have and I never saw this before.