For pumpers who clean grease traps in restaurants and other businesses where hoses are either not allowed or an unwanted nuisance, the Wee Vac from Wee Engineer Inc. provides a portable, low-cost alternative.
“We came up with the Wee Vac when we started pumping 35-gallon, under-sink grease traps at small mall stores, and no one wanted dirty 3-inch hoses coming into their kitchens,” says Bob Parker, company president. “Some places didn’t even allow hoses.”
The solution? Parker adapted a two-wheel hand truck by adding larger rubber tires and a sturdier axle. Then he modified a 55-gallon drum by attaching a 3-inch coupler to the lid for a vacuum-hose hookup, and mounting an electric vacuum pump that draws 105 cfm. Inside the drum, a 2-inch pipe runs from the camlock almost to the bottom of the barrel, which enables pumpers to vacuum out the drum’s contents with their septic truck hose. Two nylon ratchet straps affix the drum to the hand truck.
The unit comes with a 10-foot-long, 1-1/2-inch-diameter vacuum hose. A 3-foot-long plastic pipe on the end is used to punch holes in the grease crust and scrape down the sides of a trap. A ball-and-seat mechanism prevents overflows, just like the primary shutoff valve in a septic truck, Parker says.
“The Wee Vac is actually a modified shop vac,” he says. “We’ve used it for 12 or 15 years, and it seems like every time we build a septic truck, the customer asks us to build them a Wee Vac, too. So we decided to build and sell them.”
The unit weighs about 125 pounds and is 28 inches wide, so it fits through a standard 32-inch doorway. The drum is 35 inches tall, and the unit measures 52 inches tall to the top of the hand truck handle. On new trucks, designers can create space to store the unit. On existing vehicles, many pumpers store it on a hitch hauler that fits into a standard Reese receiver, Parker says.
Even though the drum holds 55 gallons, its maximum capacity is 40 gallons. That leaves enough room for the grease to move without spilling when the drum is tipped backward for transport.
“There are more expensive products on the market that are very sophisticated, with features such as odor depressors,” he says. “Ours is very basic, without a lot of bells and whistles. We tried to keep it simple so it’s easy to operate and less expensive.”
The unit is easy to maintain. If the barrel is damaged, it’s simple to replace it with another one. It’s versatile, too; Parker says some customers use it to clean remote portable restrooms, powering it with a generator.
For more information, call 877/296-2555 or visit www.wee-engineer.com.
