BinderHow often does a commercial kitchen hood need cleaning?
NFPA 96 sets the interval by what you cook and how much of it, not by the size of the building. The table below is the frequency at which the system must be inspected; cleaning follows wherever that inspection finds contamination.
| Interval | Type of cooking operation |
|---|---|
| Monthly | Solid fuel cooking. Wood, charcoal, mesquite. Also systems serving high volume operations running more than about 16 hours a day. |
| Quarterly | High volume cooking. Charbroiling, wok cooking, heavy fryer use. |
| Semi-annually | Moderate volume. The tier most sit down restaurants fall into: gas ranges, convection ovens, standard fryer use. |
| Annually | Low volume. Seasonal operations, day camps, churches, places that cook occasionally rather than daily. |
Two things this table does not tell you
It is a minimum, not a schedule. If an inspection finds grease accumulation before the next interval is due, the system is cleaned then. Your authority having jurisdiction can require more frequent service than the table if your system warrants it, and a history of heavy accumulation is exactly the sort of thing that prompts that.
A charbroiler moves you up a tier. The most common way an operator ends up on the wrong interval is adding one piece of equipment. Putting a charbroiler or a wok range on a line that was previously moderate volume changes which row you are in, and nobody sends a letter about it.
Which tier am I in
If you are not sure, your hood cleaner already knows, because they set the interval on your service agreement. The date printed on the sticker on your hood tells you what they decided. If that date is more than six months after the last service and you run a charbroiler, that is worth a conversation.
This page describes what published standards say. It is not legal advice and it is not a determination about any premises. The requirements that apply to your building, including how often work must be done and what must be kept, are set by your authority having jurisdiction, which is usually your local fire marshal or health department. Where this page and your inspector disagree, your inspector is right.
Keeping this straight without thinking about it
Binder holds the interval for each piece of equipment and tells you at 30, 14 and 3 days before it lapses, in your location's own timezone. The interval starts as the published default for that trade and is yours to change when your inspector sets a different one.
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