There’s a version of this story that comes to a head in a fire investigation, a kitchen in shambles and an insurance company scratching their heads asking why the exhaust duct hadn’t been given a proper clean for fourteen months. Most hospitality operators along Lennox Head know that version of events; it’s just the sort of thing that they think happens in someone else’s kitchen, not theirs. The problem is that grease buildup just doesn’t announce itself until it’s serious.
Fire & Rescue NSW have confirmed that about 80 per cent of food preparation establishments are using contractors to sort out the grease filters and exhaust systems. The problem lies in how often to clean these things, and that’s where the misunderstanding starts to concentrate, and that’s where the risks really kick in.
Why Grease Build-Up Is a Recipe for Disaster?
The grease vapour that gets produced while cooking rises up through the range hood and just deposits itself on all the internal surfaces anywhere the airflow slows or changes direction. It doesn’t build up evenly, which is what makes grease cleaning Lennox Head so challenging. It concentrates in those hard-to-get-to areas: the duct elbows, the faces of the damper, the fan housings, the bits that you can’t even see from within the kitchen without some specialist equipment.
Once the grease has built up enough, and just one tiny bit of burning material gets drawn up from the cooking surface, that’s it; the fire will start and travel all the way down the duct to the external discharge point. And the kitchen’s suppression system just won’t be able to get to it because the suppression agent only works at the cooking surface level, not within the duct. Duct fires cause a lot more structural damage than surface fires and then there’s the added complication of all the smoke that gets into the building.
Cleaning Frequency: There’s No One-Size-Fits-All
A six-month cleaning cycle isn’t going to be right for every single commercial kitchen in Lennox Head. How often you clean should be based on the actual amount of cooking you do, what sort of fuel you use and how many hours the kitchen is open for. Kitchens that are running non-stop and are doing a high volume of frying, for example, are going to need a much more frequent clean than a small café that only serves up non-fried food.
If you’re doing a lot of charcoal or wood-fired cooking or wok cooking then you’re looking at needing to get it done a lot more frequently even before the six-month mark. And then there’s Lennox Head’s seasonal pattern which adds another layer of complexity because of the way the kitchen operates.
What You Get With a Proper Service?
A proper exhaust cleaning job isn’t just about giving the range hood a good clean. It should cover the whole hood body and all the internal bits and the full duct run from the hood to the external discharge point, the exhaust fan and the outlet. Doing just the visible parts of the hood and the parts of the duct that you can actually reach isn’t good enough because all the worst offenders are in the hidden areas like the fan housing and the duct bends.
You need a good strong chemical treatment that can get into all the tight spots: the corners, the seams, the bit where the duct meets the fan. And you need to be able to get the fan out of its mounting so that you can get to the blades and the inside of the housing. And at the end of it all, once you’ve done the job, it’s a good idea to lay down some drop sheets around the work area to protect everything from getting splattered with de-greaser.
Filter Cleaning Is Not the Same as Exhaust Cleaning
The removable grease filters catch the largest particles from the cooking fumes but don’t catch everything that goes into the duct. The duct and fan will get deposits no matter how often you clean your filters, and these deposits can’t be cleaned using the same procedures as for filters.
Thinking of filter cleaning as the same as exhaust cleaning is the most common misconception held by food business owners, and the one which is most likely to cause an uncomfortable discussion with the insurance company or an environmental health officer.
Business Continuity and Insurance Considerations
Insurance and commercial property policies for food businesses usually involve certain maintenance requirements. A grease fire in the exhaust system when there are no recent records of professional cleaning means the potential for a claim investigation irrespective of how often you change the filters. By arranging professional cleaning just before the Lennox Head tourist season when the business isn’t busy on weekdays, the risk is covered during the peak period.
