The commercial kitchen hood, which plays a crucial role in ventilating the air of harmful smoke and contaminants in a cooking environment, is required to be cleaned on a regular basis. NFPA 96 was designed to help prevent restaurant kitchen fires by requiring that commercial kitchen exhaust and vent hoods be cleaned frequently.
Restaurant kitchens are required to maintain a high degree of cleanliness to prevent unsanitary conditions for people who work and dine at the establishment.
Why Kitchen Hoods are Essential for Restaurants
A kitchen hood is an important piece of equipment that should be installed in every commercial kitchen. It is installed over the stove and/or oven, and its role is to ventilate hot air and collect grease. The hood prevents buildup of grease around the kitchen and throughout the building. It not only makes your kitchen and restaurant a safer place, but it also reduces the amount of work needed to keep the place clean.
There are more complicated standards for the restaurant kitchen hood cleaning boca raton fl. The cooking process creates air that is laden with smoke and greasy vapors that collect in the ductwork. Laws often require that the kitchen must ventilate harmful vapors to provide clean and safe air to breathe. In order to maintain healthy conditions, the kitchen hood must be cleaned on a regular basis.
Reasons to Have Your Kitchen Hood Cleaned
Frequent cooking that occurs in a commercial kitchen produces a large amount of substances in the ventilation system that include moisture, smoke and grease. The exhaust fan of the apparatus draws these substances up through the hood and the filter, then the remaining air travels through the ductwork. Over time, the buildup of soot and grease becomes a fire hazard if it is not attended to. Having the kitchen hood cleaned prevents kitchen exhaust fires.
The circumstances that lead to a kitchen fire often begin with a flame that flares up on the stove when grease comes in contact with a burner. Sometimes these occasional kitchen flames can be large enough to reach the filter mounted within the kitchen hood. If the hood has not been cleaned, it will have a large accumulation of grease that could get ignited by the flame. The exhaust fan draws the grease fire up into the ductwork where there is grease lining the ducts, and the fire can spread farther into the building. At this point, a fire extinguisher would not be enough to stop the spread of the fire.
Other than posing a fire hazard, a neglected kitchen hood can pose other hazards. When the filters and grease traps become too dirty, the apparatus is no longer capable of keeping the air free of hazardous contaminants which pose a health hazard to people in the restaurant and throughout the building.
Regulations
Attending to this problem is not only important for people’s safety. It’s also required by regulations that include the NFPA 96 Standards. The National Fire Protection Association establishes the codes for local fire safety standards and regulations.
Your local fire regulations outline the maintenance and cleaning that is required to comply with the law. These requirements include cleaning schedules for ventilation systems and fans. If your kitchen fails safety inspections, there will be recovery costs from having the kitchen brought up to standards. In some cases, insurance companies will refuse to cover losses that result from failure to keep up maintenance and cleanliness procedures.
Other Hazards
Because of the presence of grease buildup in the kitchen hood, there are other hazards apart from fire risks and reduced air quality. The buildup of grease and food particles promotes the growth of bacteria, mold and mildew in the kitchen. These harmful substances can affect the safety of the food. Also, a neglected kitchen hood is more likely to become mechanically damaged, and repair or replacement costs might place a big burden on the finances of the business.
Cleaning Schedule
The cleaning schedule for your commercial kitchen hood depends on the type of restaurant you have and how busy the establishment is. The busiest restaurants will need to have the kitchen hood cleaned every month. These types of restaurants include 24-hour establishments and fast-food chain locations. If the restaurant uses a charcoal stove, it will also need more frequent ventilation cleaning.
Pizza restaurants and other businesses with average customer traffic will need kitchen hood cleaning performed two to four times per year. If the kitchen has cooking appliances that do not produce grease and are not used often, a single cleaning each year might suffice.
Given all the potential hazards and losses from a neglected kitchen hood, it is plain to see how important it is to hire professionals to clean this crucial piece of equipment on a regular basis. Consult with experts to establish your cleaning schedule, and find a reputable cleaning company to perform this task.