IKECA Meetings and fire inspections

Attendees at the AHJ training seminar.

Good to see everyone at the Milwaukee Technical Meetings. We have 40 Code officials (AHJ's) from Milwaukee, Madison, MN, and Canada attend the AHJ training seminar on Wednesday. I hope everyone learned something. Jeff Shadegg from the Inver Grove Heights Fire Department made a presentation on Friday about their grease exhaust inspection program. He has been doing this for over 20 years. Since he started the IGH program, they have eliminated grease exhaust fires!! With a low cost permit program and checking almost every single cleaning done right at the end of the jobs, the program has eliminated shortcut cleaning jobs along with the dangers and risks to the facilities. Jeff would be a good source for cities looking into their own program. Proper grease exhaust cleaning inspection programs can potentially save cities, restaurants, and insurance companies millions of dollars a year plus untold lives that are affected by the fires. John Lee, a Windsor, Canada Fire inspector also presented about their new program and they are finding the same things as all programs do at the start with vast areas not done to NFPA96 standards and the claims by the KEC companies that the duct are inaccessible. This claim is such a bogus line in my opinion and unacceptable. Proper UL listed access plates can easily be installed and the systems are not really inaccessible, the truth is the companies simply are not professionally evaluating the systems during their bid process and including and requiring proper access. My saying is simple. "There are no inaccessible areas, only areas people choose not to access." When you see "inaccessible areas cleaned" on a hood sticker, it is a possible warning that some or all areas were not cleaned and you still have a huge fire danger. I know this is standard on many canned hood stickers, but that statement needs to go away on a certification sticker. I think only systems completely cleaned should be certified!! That is my opinion and if followed, it will lead to a lot less confusion on what was actually cleaned or not. It also holds the cleaning companies and restaurants accountable. I tell all KEC companies that they should refuse to clean a job that will not allow them to install proper access and that proper access MUST be a precondition to taking on any job or bid.