A shop trap is not a bathroom auger

Last updated 31 October 2026.

A shop that says “the floor trap is slow” may mean three different fittings. Under the pantry sink is a bottle trap full of rice and detergent. In the kitchen floor is a floor trap taking sullage. Outside, or under the slab, is the grease trap that PUB requires for a food shop. Clearing the bottle trap and pumping the grease trap are not the same afternoon, and neither is the bathroom auger printed at S$120 to S$240. That auger sentence is a toilet bowl or a bathroom floor trap. The Malay choke guide’s overview ranges are a different page again. When the sentences differ, book the sentence that names the tool and the fixture.

HDB’s shop guide tells the tenant to engage a PUB licensed plumber for water pipe services. A new point from the rising main is that plumber, and the price is quote on inspection. Labour to replace a tap that is already on its point is S$55, the row on the tap page. A snapped angle-valve thread, with no hack, is S$180 to S$320 where that is the valve. Six to ten hoses and valves are S$260 to S$450. A shop pantry with one weeping tap is the S$55 row if the photo is that tap. It is not an invitation to tee a new sink off the riser.

People ask what a floor trap costs and what size it is. No supply price for a floor trap, and no universal diameter, is printed here. PUB’s standard drawings size grease traps, not a single millimetre we can paste onto every shop. The photo of the existing trap is the specification. A 1,000-gallon figure that appears in overseas answers is not a Singapore band. Our pumping row is S$350 to S$680 for an under-sink or floor grease trap, with fat removal, a gasket check and a bio-enzyme dose, as the exhaust page states it.

Curtains, blinds and roller shades are not part of this booking. A roller shutter is a different product and stays on the shutter page.

The trap is opened only after someone has said what was poured in. Caustic on top of another chemical is how the next person cannot work safely. A bottle trap under a sink is disconnected, cleared, and reseated. If the bowl itself has dropped, the undermount repair is S$220 to S$450 on the sink page, brackets rather than another blob of epoxy. That is a stone-top failure, not a floor trap. A floor trap that is slow because of silt is cleared if it matches a printed sentence. If it does not, the answer is quote on inspection rather than a stretched auger.

Grease is a different system. PUB’s Code of Practice on Sewerage and Sanitary Works, March 2025, says food shops and food processing establishments discharging to the public sewer have a grease trap, except a shop with no cooking and no dine-in, and only with PUB’s permission for that exception. Waste from sinks and floor traps in the preparation area goes to the trap on its own pipes. Toilet waste does not. The trap has to be somewhere a licensed general waste collector can clean it. Pumping is the exhaust page. Scooping grease into a refuse chute or a floor waste is the failure HDB also forbids when it talks about renovation debris, and it is the wrong way to “empty” a trap.

A food shop that smells at the trap is often a maintenance gap, not a new pipe. HDB’s guide makes the eating-house tenant pay for the grease separator and for maintaining it, and asks for receipts when HDB wants them. The hood and duct on those trades are degreased at least every 12 months, or more often under heavy use, by an exhaust specialist. That cleaning has its own bands: hood and filters S$450 to S$850, the full system S$750 to S$1,850. A handyman who only tightens a trap cover has not done the duct.

Photograph the trap you mean, with the grate lifted if you can do it without a flood. Say sink, floor trap, or grease trap. Say whether food is cooked. Say whether the water point exists. A slow pantry and a slow customer toilet can be two rows or one quote. Do not add them up as two augers.

If the floor above or the tenant below is staining, stop using the fixture and say so. That may be a leak through the slab, which is not a trap clearance. The waterproofing page is the longer note. This visit does not hack.

Name the chamber before you name the tool.

Questions a shop should ask

A plumbing quote for a shop should separate these.

1. Is the slow fitting a sink bottle trap, a floor trap, or the grease trap?
2. Is the water point already there?
3. Is food cooked or served on the premises?
4. When was the grease trap last pumped, and who took the waste?
5. Has anyone poured a chemical in? Which one?
6. Does the toilet waste join the kitchen waste? It should not.
7. Is the stain on the ceiling below? That may not be this trap.
8. Are you asking for a 1,000-gallon price? That unit is not how this catalogue is written.

The same word “trap” is a different pipe in each room.

The Sewerage and Drainage (Trade Effluent) Regulations define a grease trap and, at regulation 6, require one where the codes of practice say so, maintained as the Board requires by notice. Regulation 10 says trade effluent must not be discharged with grease and oil, other than hydrocarbon, greater than 300 milligrams per litre. That limit is the regulation as amended, in force from the dates printed on Singapore Statutes Online. It is not a target to approach. The practical control is the trap and how often it is emptied.

PUB’s March 2025 code, section 4.2.2, is the layout: traps for food shops, toilet waste excluded, portable interceptors only in the narrow case the code allows after a URA change of use where a standard trap is not feasible, and sited so a licensed general waste collector can reach them. PUB’s used-water FAQ says the eatery owns and maintains the trap, and that NEA’s layout is cleared before Form F goes to PUB. We do not submit Form F.

HDB’s shop guide assigns water pipe services to a PUB licensed plumber and, for an eating house, the cost of the grease separator and its upkeep to the tenant. A mall may add a permit to work if the pump-out truck has to stand at a loading bay. The overnight handyman row is not a vacuum-truck price.

Official pages

• PUB Code of Practice on Sewerage and Sanitary Works, 3rd edition, March 2025
• Sewerage and Drainage (Trade Effluent) Regulations
• PUB used-water FAQ on grease traps
• HDB renovation guide for shop tenants and owners, December 2025

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, invoices the permit-exempt visit. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, invoices hacking, a new layout, and an HDB renovation permit. Homey Furnishing is not a property agency, not a CEA practice, and not a vector-control operator.

How you're charged

A job that already has a sentence on HomeySG uses that sentence. The hour is not added on top of a band unless the written scope says so. There is no fuel surcharge and no published night premium except the mall overnight row. A shop does not inherit a flat’s price just because the fitting looks similar.

Tap labour, the bathroom auger, and the grease-trap pump are three rows. A fixture that matches none of them is quote on inspection. A new water point is not given a handyman price.

Ways to keep the bill smaller

• Pump the grease trap on a schedule. A solidified trap is a longer job than a routine pump, and the exhaust page already separates them.
• Do not pour a second chemical. Tell us the first one.
• Keep toilet alterations off the kitchen waste. Reworking a wrong connection costs more than routing it correctly once.
• Photograph the right grate. A visit to the wrong trap is a wasted mobilisation.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630.

Three printed rows. The rest of a shop stack is quote on inspection.

Anything not in that table is quote on inspection.

WhatsApp the photos to +65 8561 0630. The reply uses a band already printed on HomeySG, or it says quote on inspection.

• Who maintains the grease trap
• Pump-out and hood cleaning
• Food-shop inspection repairs
• Plumber and handyman, on a home stack
• The floor, if the problem is the finish