How often do you have yours cleaned? is there a standard/law? we clean our hood every 90 days.
The fire department has determined that I must have my hood professionally cleaned every 12 months. The DQ across the parking lot must have theirs cleaned every 3 months. So you should check with the fire department to see what they require.
we have to get ours cleaned every 6 months per our insurance…if we have a fire and dont have our cleaning on file they don’t pay.
ours used to be every 6 months, but about 2 years ago the insurance co made it quarterly to the delight of my hood cleaning guy…dont you think that deserves a price break?
Now if we all doubled our business because of a change in laws we could all retire soon…I am sure there is some association of hood cleaners that lobbied for that change, huh?
Sad, but probably true! I know in my state a large hood manufacturer lobbied to have all exhaust hoods require tempered make-up air, and no grandfathering clauses. This was overturned within a few years due to the cost involved and it was a fix for a problem that didn’t exist. One large help was my particular state rep owns a restaurant, so he was on this like a rabid pitbull when I brought it to his attention.
We pull the permanent filters and clean them every couple of weeks. Takes about 30 minutes. We had a professional cleaner come in to clean our ducts a few years ago (after 10 years) and he looked at them and said they did not need service. Honest guy.
We have our filters replaced every month by a service contractor. They are never heavily soiled (only just lightly) but our insurance demands we change them at this rate (or less)
Last year we had our system fully cleaned and the guy said they had hardly any build-up (after 7 years) but we have to get them dome annually as part of our ease requirements. They were slack in following up for certificates the previous years but not any more
Unfortunately there are too many blanket rules/conditions that cover all the different types of operations and ones like ours that generate very little residue still have to get things done as often as a heavy user does
Dave
I just heard from my insurance guy and they are requiring me to clean mine every 6 months now. I have only had them done twice in the last 10 yrs & even then the cleaner said they were not bad at all.
Our county along with the fire department thought it is best to pass a mandate to have the hoods cleaned every 6 months, WHAT? It has been 2 years since my last cleaning. The Old mandated said they had to be inspected so he came out and looked at it and said what a waste of money it does not need cleaning. I am all but certain that the "new service in the area pushed for this, we had one fire in a Mexican restaurant that was believed to be started in the hood, it was later determined to actually be wiring for his sign. So now there is this call to arms for stricter guidelines. They came to my restaurant WITH the ordinance in hand. I told them to leave I have my own service. Tomorrow I am going to each and every restaurant in town encouraging them to not use this service and leave a card of the guy who does mine, he gave me an extremely good rate compared to this other company.
On a side note every 3 months we get the call "Hey this is so and so calling on behalf of your local fire department, we are calling because you have always in the past sponsored our “insert name here” and we were hoping you could do it again, can I put you down for $100? We have a guy in your area right now and should be there soon… I told him I am sorry with the fire departments new mandate that requires me to pay more $$ for something a professional deems excessive, I used their money that was set aside for them and UNTIL this is revised there will be no more donations. Have a nice day!