Grease and grime and harmful bacteria can easily build up in kitchen ductwork, creating a risk of fire and helping spread disease. Kitchen extract cleaning can be a tricky business and needs to be carried out by ductwork hygiene experts like Tecomak. As well as being essential for health and safety reasons, regular duct cleaning is also a requirement made by insurers.
Here we look at some of the issues and legislation which are relevant to kitchen safety in public buildings such as schools, colleges and hospitals.
Educational Premises
Schools, colleges and universities are protected by a raft of health and safety legislation. These include Health and Safety legislation and Environmental Health compliance, as well as the need for a valid Fire Safety Certificate.
Kitchen ductwork cleaning can be split into two areas in schools and colleges. These are the main kitchen where meals are served for all pupils and staff, and the food technology classrooms where the subject is taught.
The principal kitchen is more likely to be subject to a build-up of grease in hood and ductwork, which means it can be a bigger fire risk. This means cleaning and inspection visits should be scheduled on a regular basis. Kitchens in the classroom should also be checked regularly, although, because they are not usually used as much, the checks do not need to be as frequent. We can advise you on the frequency needed for each area.
Tecomak appreciates that schools have specific requirements and need to avoid downtime. This means our work can be tailored to minimise any inconvenience by:
- Arranging testing and maintenance out of school term time wherever possible;
- Carrying out any testing and maintenance work simultaneously;
- Ensuring all our engineers have been CRB checked for work in schools.
Healthcare Premises
Healthcare buildings are also covered by a range of acts and legislation. It is important to have a rigorous cleaning regime in place in hospital kitchens because of their proximity to vulnerable people like patients. Ductwork can easily spread disease and bacteria, so it is essential that it is kept clean in all areas of the hospital, including kitchens.
Deep cleaning of supply and extract ductwork will help you meet the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order of 2005. Tecomak can tailor the visits to fit individual requirements.
We carry out more regular inspections of ductwork in kitchens which see comparatively heavy use. So any kitchen which is being used at least 12 hours every day should be checked four times a year. Ductwork in kitchens which are not used as much should inspected either annually or twice a year. Tecomak follows the recommendations laid down in The Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES) TR/19 Standards guidelines.
General Ductwork Issues
As members of the Building Engineering Services Association, we are fully compliant with all the kitchen extract duct cleaning legislation and guidelines which can be common to both educational and healthcare premises.
This means we at Tecomak have to be aware of:
- The safety considerations when using caustic chemicals to clean away grease from ductwork. It can damage the inbuilt protective seals, leading to a fire risk
- The need to give a full Post Clean report, with pictures, and highlighting any fire risks
- The need to say what the current level of cleanliness is and if the current inspection and cleaning regime needs to be changed
- The requirement to state whether the whole system was checked and cleaned out.
Ductwork hygiene professionals Tecomak can carry out all testing and maintenance work on the kitchen extraction systems, whether it is in a school, college, university or hospital. Our expertise in dealing with all types of kitchen ductwork means you won’t have the problem of finding outside contractors for different parts of the job.
