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restaurant hood cleaning service
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More than 70% fires in commercial kitchens & restaurants are caused by cooking equipment!!
As a restaurant owner or commercial kitchen manager, you very well understand the importance of keeping the kitchen and equipment clean. The safety & health of your customers depends on cleanliness, this makes absolute vital to eradicate every small molecule of direct and bacteria.
Commercial cleaning best practices include developing guidelines for cleaning your restaurant and restaurant equipment, and training staff to clean and disinfect kitchen tools and equipment. Management should also apply best practices by setting up a daily, weekly and monthly cleaning schedule for the commercial kitchen.
In addition to the stove and grill, the kitchen hood is one of the integral parts of the kitchen. However, simply installing a cooker hood is by no means sufficient to make the kitchen a safe place to work. The accumulated grease in a restaurant’s kitchen can become very gummed and difficult to remove, posing a serious fire hazard. Regular maintenance of the exhaust system of the restaurant kitchen, including the hood, is one of the main means of protection against fire.
This means that cleaning the kitchen hood is a must. Failure to do so could result in fines and closings, amid fires and other disasters. At hood cleaners of America, hood cleaning is one of our service which we provide in various locations of Canada & USA.
Wondering where to begin when it comes to the question of how to clean a restaurant kitchen? Let’s, first try and understand what kitchen hoods are and how to clean them?
What Is a Kitchen Hood?
A kitchen hood, exhaust hood, or range hood is one of the most important appliances in the kitchen. It is a device containing a mechanical fan that hangs over the commercial ranges, fryers, grills and cooking equipment. The primary function of the fan or blower motor is to extract the air pollution caused by cooking.
How Does a Commercial Kitchen Hood Work?
There are primarily 4 components that build up a kitchen hood and their appropriate functionality keeps our kitchen safe for our staff and customers.
- Filter – A device that is installed in the exhaust hood in such a way as to remove grease from the exhausted air by entrapment, impingement, adhesion, or other similar means and allow it to drain to a grease trough.
- Fan – Just behind the filters are one or more exhaust fans that pushes the polluted air generated in kitchen while coking, out through ductwork.
- Grease traps – The grease trap is designed to collect and therefore reduce the amount of fats, oils and greases (FOG) entering the main drain.
- Ductwork – The air duct is the entire duct that captures the air flow through the expanding opening and delivers it up and down. Filters, fans and grease traps are located inside the duct.
The Hood cleaner of America is the certified hood cleaning service provider and maintains your kitchen with perfection.
Huge chuck of American population loves to dine out for full service restaurant & quick service restaurant. And 85% don’t prefer the restaurant having bad reviews related to cleanliness consequently it makes really important for business owners for keep their commercial kitchen clean and maintained.
Cleaning Commercial Hoods
So here we begin with the fun stuff. In general there are six steps involved in hood cleaning
- Inspect the Exhaust System
Before cleaning even begins, technicians should inspect the exhaust system to identify any unusual items that need to be corrected. During this check, the technician can identify parts of the system that need to be repaired or potentially replaced, such as partition filters.
Contact Hood Cleaners of America for FREE inspection.
- Shut off the Exhaust Fan
These days we have some automatic machines where the complete unit switches off in one go, but still it is advisable to the entire technician to cross check before starting the procedure. It is a good practice as this prevents possible damage to his or her cleaning tools.
- Prepare the Kitchen
Turn off and unplug everything and let it cool down. Then cover all the surrounding equipment & surfaces with plastic sheet. The hood cleaning process is a messy one. Technician by removing the baffle filters, prepare the funnels to collect the grease and debris.
- Restaurant Hood Filter Cleaning
Be it baffle. Mesh or charcoal filters, they should all be easily pulled out. Once the filters are out, remove the steel spacer that rest near the grease taps. You need to use a soft-bristled brush to clean the filter and later run them through the dishwasher.
- Cleaning the Grease taps of the Restaurant
After removing the filters and gaskets, remove the grease cups or grease traps. There should be traps on each side of the hood. Remove them, being careful not to spill any residual grease on them. After removal, drain the grease into a separate container. Do not drain grease down the drain. It will harden and cause blockage. Let it dry, then discard in a sturdy, sealed container.
- Hood Fan & Hood Duct Cleaning of the Restaurant
It’s time to remove the fans or blower blades. Many low profile hoods have a dual motor, dual fan system. It draws in air from both sides of the hood to distribute the flow evenly. Clean the fans with a soft bristle brush or non-abrasive brush. If they are really bad, toss them in the soaking solution along with filters and traps.
Prepare a degreaser of the same concentration as in your sink, but this time keep it in a small bucket of sanitizer. Use a non-abrasive cleaning cloth or soft bristled brush of the same type to clean the inside and outside of the open hood. After you have thoroughly cleaned and removed all grease from the visible air ducts, you can reinstall other parts.
Hood cleaners of America offers you best hood cleaning services on the best competitive rates.
How Often Should It Be Cleaned?
NFPA-96 requires commercial kitchens to clean their exhaust systems every month to once a year, depending on the amount of cooking. NEPA, lays out recommended frequencies. Make sure that this is included in your restaurant cleaning check list.
Monthly Restaurant Hood Cleaning
If you have a fast food restaurant, 24hrs canteens, where the cooking, grilling and frying never stops, or if you use a high-calorie fuel such as charcoal, clean it once a month.
Quarterly Restaurant Hood Cleaning
An average restaurant or a kitchen without solid fuel should undergo quarterly commercial range hood cleaning. A restaurant that operates 16-hrs per day on low volume of business can go for the quarterly hood cleaning.
Annual Restaurant Hood Cleaning
This applicable to facilities that use their Kitchen seasonally for example in church camps or events. If the kitchen is used for a month or two every year, it can be cleaned once a year. Also, if the kitchen is out of grease or oil, or if the kitchen uses a plant-based kitchen, once or twice a year should be more than enough to keep the air ducts clean.
Hopefully by now you must have understood the hood cleaning process and when to get in touch with the hood cleaning service providers. You can contact hood cleaners of America for any cleaning services required in your facilit