Caterers – Grease your cake tins, not your ductwork
Cleaning the kitchen itself is obvious, but behind the scenes, in areas that most kitchen and cleaning staff cannot access, there is a specialist cleaning challenge. As food is cooked, minute droplets of fat, oils and grease become airborne. Once inside the kitchen extract system, hot air cools and grease particles, once held in suspension, form deposits on the inside surfaces of the extraction system.
These grease deposits pose a serious fire risk. Should a kitchen fire start for any reason, it can be made much worse if it reaches the ductwork. The grease deposits on the inner surface of extract ductwork will act as fuel for the fire and the ductwork itself can act as a chimney, causing fire to spread rapidly to other parts of the building. This can make an otherwise containable fire into a major incident, posing a threat to neighbouring properties.
To minimise the risk of fire in the extract system, cleaning should be carried out according to the TR19® Grease specification, which is issued by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA).
To achieve compliance, all grease deposits must be completely removed from the entire extraction system, including the canopy, hood, fan and all ductwork. In some older systems, there are insufficient access hatches to be able to reach the entire system. In these cases, additional access hatches should be retrofitted to allow access to the whole system, particularly around angles and turns in the ductwork, which tend to encourage grease to collect.
It is a common misconception that grease deposits need to be very thick in order to constitute a fire risk, but this is simply not the case. Although we have often seen extremely heavy fat deposits, particularly on our first cleaning of an extract system, the TR19® Grease specification stipulates that the grease layer should be controlled within an average of 200 microns over the surface of the ductwork. To put this into perspective, 200 microns is roughly half the thickness of the average business card, so a relatively thin grease film can constitute a real fire risk, especially in warmer weather, when fire can take hold more easily.
TR19® Grease compliance is critical for a number of reasons, the most pressing being the safety of your staff, guests and residents, both in the restaurant and in any adjoining or neighbouring properties. If damage occurs, you will need your buildings insurance to pay out so that you can repair and rebuild as needed. However, if the fire investigators establish that the ductwork was not compliant with TR19® Grease, and cleaning had not been carried out for some time, the building insurer is not likely to pay out on the policy. Increasingly, insurers will expect you to comply with TR19® Grease as part of your terms and conditions. If you do not comply with TR19® Grease, not only will you not be able to rebuild your own business, you may also be financially and legally liable for damage for neighbouring properties.
The legal consequences of failing to comply with TR19® Grease are very concerning. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the Responsible Person for the property may be prosecuted for negligence. If found guilty of negligence, they may face a custodial sentence, especially if there have been any injuries or fatalities as a result of the fire.
Clearly, it is essential to keep good records of your compliance with TR19® Grease. It is essential to use a member of the Vent Hygiene Register, with cleaning being caried out by competent technicians with the relevant specialist training. Only Vent Hygiene Register members can provide certification of each completed clean, which provides valuable evidence to both insurance companies and the authorities that you have done all that is required of you to comply with your legal responsibilities under TR19® Grease.
Contact us on 0800 243 471 or info@swiftclean.co.uk to find out more or to request a quotation.
