commercial
Commercial kitchen and extract cleaning
Kitchen extract cleaning costs £250 to £600 for a small takeaway system and £600 to £1,500 for a restaurant, with large or difficult ductwork running higher. It is a fire safety job rather than a hygiene one, and the reason most kitchens book it is that the insurer asks for the certificate.
What this covers
What it costs. Kitchen extract cleaning costs £250 to £600 for a small takeaway system and £600 to £1,500 for a restaurant. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Canopies, filters and plenums cleaned to bare metal
- Ductwork cleaned through access panels along its full run
- Extract fans and impellers stripped and cleaned
- Access panels cut and fitted where a duct has none
- A post-clean report with photographs and grease depth readings
What is involved
The standard is TR19 Grease, published by the Building Engineering Services Association, and it is what an insurer and a fire risk assessor will both refer to. It sets how clean is clean, measured as grease depth in microns, and it requires the whole system to be done rather than the visible end of it.
That is the part kitchens are most often sold short on. A canopy and a set of filters can be cleaned in an evening and look immaculate, while the duct behind them, which is where a fire actually travels, has never been opened. Ductwork needs access panels at intervals along its run, and a system built without them cannot be cleaned or verified until they are cut in.
Frequency follows cooking hours and what is being cooked. Heavy frying running all day is quarterly; a light-use kitchen may be annual. The certificate records the date, the readings and the areas that could not be reached, and that last line is the one worth reading, because an inaccessible run is a gap in the cover as well as in the clean.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask whether they work to TR19 Grease and what they issue afterwards. A report with photographs and grease depth readings is the deliverable; an invoice is not.
Ask whether the ductwork is included or only the canopy and filters. They are separately priced by many and only one of them is the fire risk.
Ask what happens where there are no access panels. Cutting and fitting them is normal, chargeable and better agreed in advance than discovered at midnight.
Common questions
How often does it need doing?
By cooking hours rather than by calendar. Heavy frying for twelve hours a day is quarterly, moderate use is every six months, and a light-use kitchen is often annual. TR19 Grease sets the frequency from a risk assessment rather than from a calendar, and your insurer may set its own interval on top.
Does the insurer really ask for it?
Many commercial kitchen policies require it, and a fire claim is where it gets checked. A certificate with the dates and readings is what satisfies that, which is why the report matters more than the appearance of the canopy.