Tales of the greaser

Contract Language to include

2012-02-02T15:06:00.004-06:00

How many times have restaurants had to make difficult decisions about how to get the money available for an initial remedial grease exhaust system cleanings due entirely on previous vendors leaving years of grease behind each time? We have standard contract language developed by one of the major chains that addresses this. Make sure you include the sections that all parts of the systems are to be cleaned to bare metal and then add the line 11 clause into the contract. It gives you the right to receive compensation to clean up these missed areas left behind from the contracted companies that do not perform. These additional costs can run up into the thousands if left too long as you can see by my previous posts. The specification sheet to attach can be found out the Enviromatic Web site. There are exceptions to allow partial cleanings only when you have systems with pollution control units in place (IE: Smoghogs, UV, filtration banks, etc) and there is very little or no grease past the PCUs. This can also follow with multistory vertical risers where there is little or no building reaching these areas. Please be very careful in writing the contracts where PCU's are involved.

1. Chemicals used should be non-toxic and non-flammable. No Butyl Cellosolve or related solvents allowed!!

2. Protect and cover all kitchen equipment. A funnel should be made around the hood to trap the waste and debris for proper disposal.

3. Steam clean/ hot power wash and polish the entire hood both inside and outside.

4. Open fan housing, clean the entire housing inside and out, fan blades both sides and assembly, and the grease drip catch. The inside of the motor housing is not included in this contract and should be protected during the cleaning process.

5. Scrape, degrease, and steam clean/pressure wash the interior of the ductwork down to bare metal. (Residual build-up remaining after the initial cleaning is to be scraped and re-steam cleaned where needed.)

6. Remove all debris and or grease associated with the exhaust cleaning process from the roof.

7. Remove any debris, grease, dirt, etc. generated by the exhaust cleaning process from the parking or landscaped areas.

8. All services must comply with the most current National Fire Protection Code 96 and IKECA C10 standards. It also must comply to attached ___________ Specification Sheet. Inaccessible areas must be made accessible and all areas are to be cleaned.

10. All access panels must be closed, sealed or bolted with all the required bolts, screws and any required fire proof sealant/gasket. The insulation must be re-wrapped and secured to its original condition.

11 Any costs associated with having to have the system or other considered related areas cleaned up by others as a result of not being cleaned as specified will be the contractors responsibility if said contractor is either unwilling or unable to clean as required.

9 stores closed after Mall Grease exhaust Fire

2011-11-16T09:42:00.004-06:00

Area above food court

pouring smoke out during

grease exhaust fire.

Here is why proper inspection programs with full pictures of each and every cleaning (not the partial pictures the National Vendors try to pass off on cleanings that were done improperly) and full accountability are so important!
9 Ala Moana stores remain closed after fire. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -Nine stores and restaurants at Ala Moana shopping center are still closed because of yesterday's fire. On Thursday a fire forced the evacuation of the Ala Moana food court. HFD says the fire started at the Panda Express Kitchen and spread into the mall food court trunk line grease duct system. Firefighters are looking into whether the restaurant and Mall management followed the proper cleaning schedule for the duct.An unattended wok containing oil sparked the blaze.

Here is a list of the stores that are still temporarily closed:

Makai Market Food Court:

Hibachi

Yummy Korean BBQ

Soba-ya

Panda Express

Sbarro

Mall Level 2 Merchants:

Papyrus

Bag ‘n Baggage

Mall Level 3 Merchants:

American Eagle

Aeropostale

Why have on the job inspections of KEC(Kitchen Exhaust Cleanings)?

2011-11-09T07:32:00.008-06:00

Looking up from the hood at one location, you can see

where the unscrupulous cleaning companies clean only

what can be seen.

But placing the camera around the corner we see different.

And looking into the first horizontal run, we can see this has not

been done in years. This job was just "Cleaned" 3 weeks

prior to these pictures.

Another restaurant in same community, you can see

the small area cleaned from above in the vertical riser

in the middle of the picture. The rest of this horizontal

plenum above a char broiler has not been cleaned in years

as you can see clearly. This job had just been "cleaned" 2 weeks

prior. The clean parts were still fairly clean with less than 5 microns

of grease buildup.

One of the communities in the midwest once had one of the top KEC inspection programs in the state only a few years ago. They eliminated the permit program and the on site inspection of the cleanings. At its height, all systems were cleaned to NFPA96 standards with no inaccessible areas and they had one of the best track records in the country. Now, only a few years later, there are vast areas not getting cleaned as the KEC vendors now are all trying to beat each other on pricing and are now skipping areas to reduce costs now that no one is looking any more. Most of the restaurants have no ideas that this is going on or maybe are simply accepting the risk similar to what the companies using National KEC vendors are doing. If one ever wondered if a program works and how fast things go downhill without someone watching, the picture here are proof of what the reality that even some of the companies that were passing inspection previously are now skipping almost everything past what can be seen from the hood. All of these picture are from the same city, different restaurants.

IKECA Meetings and fire inspections

2011-11-09T07:15:00.006-06:00

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.

Call for help from Competitor??

2011-10-05T16:13:00.006-05:00

Looking up from the hood, the KEC company

"certified" this as clean

We look closer and see the areas you can see from below

do not look too bad and might have passed if the inspector

had not looked further up into the duct. We see only the

small part that they actually did get clean. It is almost

like they had someone spotting them to clean what can

visually be seen from below.

And looking up into the horizontal above the hood with

a camera on a monopod, this is what the rest of the

system actually looked like in this "Certified clean" system.

I got an interesting call from a KEC company owner cleaning an oriental concept with a longer horizontal duct run. The Fire Marshal had just failed the cleaning job and ordered it re-cleaned. The inspector had asked for pictures of the job, but the KEC company said he forgot, but he will certify that the system was indeed completely clean to NFPA96 standards. The inspector did not believe him for some reason and took pictures himself that I have posted above. The KEC company owner then asked how to get into the duct to clean it since we had a crew clean the system a couple years ago and the inspector had our pictures showing the same areas spotless. He also whined and complained on how hard these jobs are and how bad he underbid it. I told him there are access plates in the system that he should use and that he simply needs to get in there and get the job clean. He said the only access were above the hood and he sure wasn't going to "Crawl" up there!!??? Now one wonders how this company cleans systems that are not inspected with horizontal runs? Note: I made it to the access plate with ease and I am not a small person as those who know me can attest.

Don

What you really pay for from your Kitchen Exhaust Cleaner

2011-10-05T15:48:00.009-05:00

This job has just been completed the previous week.....

The only part of the system that was actually cleaned

was this outside of the exhaust fan

Looking at the intake of the fan on the rear system,

we see it was not tipped

back

Looking up from the fryer hood, we see only about 4 "

were actually cleaned

And when we stick the camera up the stack to look inside

the horizontal we see that not only was it never done

but there is proper access at the end of the duct as we

can plainly see in the far end

I just had a manager bring up an interesting point on value of a KEC (Kitchen exhaust cleaning) job. We were looking at a job that was just completed by a KEC company. As you can see in the pictures, only about 4 inches were cleaned up from the hood above a fryer system and about a foot down from the roof for the same system with none of the actual ductwork getting done on the other system. The fan screws were never removed or the fan tipped back. He said he paid about $400 for this cleaning. With over 20 feet of linear feet of ductwork both vertically and horizontally, he figures he paid about $400 per foot give or take a few dollars. By figuring apples to apples on the cleaning, he said the cost of cleaning the entire system by this company would be over $8000.00 at the "inexpensive rate" he had. There are many national. regional, and local KEC programs with per store pricing that seem like a good price but...... They may be inexpensive per store, but there are many that are in the thousands of dollars per foot range. Many of these restaurants are really getting "taken to the cleaners" or more literally "Taken BY the cleaners". He pointed out, that is what he is really paying for the cheap company is the $400 per foot when in reality $20-$40 per foot(depending on duct run and accessibility) is more in line that the quality companies end up charging for doing the system correctly for his particular concept. You cannot use a per foot price for bids of course as all systems are different, but it is a good analogy on value and why you need to inspect the cleanings and be very careful during the bid process on what you are getting for your money. This concept is not a large grease producer but you can see what happens after a few years when the inexpensive company skips areas. This store is only 4 years old. The manager said that the worst part is that they thought their system was safe from fire all this past 4 years that they were paying for this work every 6 months. He was not only "hosed" by the cleaning company, but could have been "hosed" again with the fire department attempting to put a grease fire out.

Picture programs

2011-09-09T08:02:00.004-05:00

Looking into a horizontal past what has

been getting cleaned previously, we see where the KEC

was avoiding cleaning and careful avoided taking

pictures of this area leaving a major fire hazard.

Without baseline pictures, the

inspector had no idea how bad of shape the system was

in or that the horizontal was even there.

Looking inside a gaylord hood just cleaned by

a well known National Vendor, the inspector never

received pictures of this area. This job has been sneaking

by for over a year.

Hi to all,
Jack and I are doing a picture program overview at the IKECA technical seminar to go over proven programs and technics. Even after 40 years of using pictures and video for job verifications, we are still learning, evolving, and improving almost daily ways to implement and use pictures for jobs. There are two primary uses for your pictures. One is to verify the job was done properly along with preexisting pictures of deficiencies found. I also like to have a couple of before pictures to show customers where their systems are in excellent shape as far as deficiencies go before the job starts. You always want everything to be extremely thorough and objective with a proper program. The other is for sales use to show the customers how good of a job you are actually doing. Of course from the sales perspective, the more buildup at the start, the better it looks when the system is spotless in the end. When I view inspection pictures however, I do not really like before pictures mixed in unless requested to view normal buildup in the system. What happens is that the pictures can become confusing. The more confusing pictures are, the more likely you are not seeing the actual overall condition of the system. I had several kitchen exhaust cleaners actually bragging to me that they breath on the lenses of the cameras to "Fog" the pictures up so their bosses and customers cannot see what they misses. I require fuzzy pictures to be retaken. All pictures other than the most simple straight up systems do need a picture description. This does not mean renaming the pictures as that can compromise security. I require the original camera numbers on the pictures and in order. A fast way for picture descriptions is to have a word file with generic names already listed that you can copy and paste from in your e-mail or attached PDF file that goes with the pictures and simply use what you need from the list and change the picture numbers to match your actual picture numbers. I also require a dated work order picture IN SEQUENCE. This is another good security measure to help avoid staff using fake or duplicated pictures. New technologies are now including GPS coordinates with the dates imbedded in the pictures which will lead to greater picture security. I highly recommend using a waterproof and shockproof digital camera for grease exhaust pictures. Standard digital camera simply do not hold up and are difficult to keep clean. You will end up with grease and moisture on the camera that will have to be removed. For longer systems, you may even need to use a video camera in addition to the digital camera. No matter what, you will need baseline pictures of the complete system to verify that future cleaning pictures are complete and actually of the same system. Even honest staff can mix up picture when doing several jobs a night. Adding the work order picture are we require helps separate jobs and keeps the confusion down. Remember that we are not in a perfect world and camera chips can and do go bad or pictures are accidentally erased. There are several good picture recovery programs out there, (I use KLIX),but they often re-date the pictures that are recovered. Without the embedded work order with the job and date, you might not have any idea which job is which. Finally, you need to actually view each and every single job. I just received pictures from a job with some colorful language written into the grease. The KEC owner was extremely embarrassed. I think they will be checking their pictures more closely before sending next time. I have viewed numerous web based programs and it is obvious not one is looking. The posted pictures are often very incomplete and many include pictures with vast areas of grease buildup. Maybe leaving grease in the system is acceptable to them, but it is NOT acceptable to NFPA96 standards nor to most AJH. (inspectors). I have just assisted going through several jobs in a current picture program for and inspector and it was appalling what was getting missed. We did find out that there are no baseline pictures built into the program so the inspector really had no idea what they were looking at. The unscrupulous KEC vendors(unfortunately that is almost all of the KEC vendors) know this and carefully avoid taking pictures of areas they do not clean. Remember, you really should take you own baseline pictures so you know exactly where the system goes and what the inside looks like. Clean duct picture are best as you can see spots, welds, other things in the metal to match up with the pictures that are sent to you. Finally, unless the pictures are obvious, you need a good picture description list so you know what you are looking at. This and a drawing if the system is complicated. Here is a typical list we use for one concept.

(Picture number-description)

1- Work order

2- Hood overview Showing all front hoods before

3- Hood overview Showing all rear hoods before

4- Up riser from Wok 1 hood before

5- Up riser from Wok 2 hood before

6- Up riser from Pantry hood before

7- Up riser from Prep hood before

8- Roof overview showing all fans and roof area around fans

9- Wok 1 Fan before

10- Wok 2 Fan before

11- Pantry Fan before

12- Prep Fan before

13- Wok 1 Fan bowl(outlet side) after

14- Wok 2 Fan bowl(outlet side) after

15- Pantry Fan bowl(outlet side) after

16- Prep Fan bowl(outlet side) after

17- Wok 1 Fan intake after

18- Wok 2 Fan intake after

19- Pantry Fan intake after

20- Prep Fan intake after

21- Back of Wok 1 fan blades after

22- Back of Wok 2 fan blades after

23- Back of Pantry fan blades after

24- Back of Prep fan blades after

25- Down Wok 1 vertical from roof after

26- Down Wok 2 vertical from roof after

27- Down Pantry vertical from roof after

28- Down Prep vertical from roof after

29- Roof overview after showing all fans and roof clean

30- Up riser from Wok 1 hood showing all 4 sides of duct including connection with

hood.

31- Up riser from Wok 2 hood showing all 4 sides of duct including connection with

hood.

32- Up riser from Pantry hood showing all 4 sides of duct including connection with

hood.

33- Up right riser from Prep hood showing all 4 sides of duct including connection

with hood.

34- Up left riser from Prep hood showing all 4 sides of duct including connection with

hood. (only one riser picture needed on systems with straight up verticals)

35- Inside of horizontal plenum for prep system from either side. (where applicable)

36- Wok 1 Hood filter trough (lower)

37- Wok 2 Hood filter trough (lower)

38- Pantry Hood filter trough (lower)

39- Prep Hood filter trough (lower)

40- Wok 1 Hood filter rail back side behind filters with bottom of riser

showing(Upper)

41- Wok 2 Hood filter rail back side behind filters with bottom of riser

showing(Upper)

42- Pantry Hood filter rail back side behind filters with bottom of riser

showing(Upper)

43- Prep Hood filter rail back side behind filters with bottom of riser showing(Upper)

44- Outside of Front hoods complete with stickers

45- Outside of Rear hood complete with sticker

Sneaky, cunning, and caught!!

2011-05-06T16:44:00.005-05:00

The latest tale is one of a well know local KEC vendor with that was well thought of previous to this episode. So desperate for work were they they they lost their integrity completely. After bidding on a very large exhaust cleaning project in a large city downtown area, they were awarded the bid by underbidding everyone substantially. Upon doing the job, they were requested pictures proving the job was complete. As they had not really cleaned much of the system, the head of the company claimed "I am so sorry, we were not complete" when confronted with pictures from the FM showing the missed areas. They then completed the job and promised pictures of the completed project. An entire cleaning cycle went by before the pictures arrived. With the pictures unclear and obviously missing many areas, the FM re-inspected. Vast areas were again found not cleaned. The KEC vendor was warned that they faced possible legal action plus other actions if not complete to NFPA standards. The unscrupulous vendor stated- "Well it has been a few months, can't we get paid for the re-clean? Besides we were never told about some of the ductwork on the next floor up and my sales guy missed in when bidding the job so we need to charge extra for that." translation: "we blew the bid and shortcut the job, but we hope you are ignorant enough to pay us extra money for it!" Of course the extra would have made them the highest bid. They were told very firmly to re-clean (actually finish cleaning) the system to NFPA96 and IKECA standards as they agreed to do and prove it is clean. As they had lowered themselves to the lowest standards and knew how little time FM's have to follow up, they again re-cleaned the system and again waited another entire cleaning cycle before sending in the pictures which again were showing grease buildup and did not show any of the multistory vertical riser that was one of the areas the FM found quite a bit of old built up grease in the bottom few floors pus missed areas in the main duct lines again. Being sneaky and once again thinking if they wait until the FM cannot possibly prove if the job was properly cleaned or not, they once again waited months before sending pictures of the 3rd re-clean. Now the customer has been through at least 4-5 cycles without the system being cleaned and no way to prove much of it. FM's and managers need to know that this waiting game with pictures and job completion notifications is a trick by companies without integrity to try to slide by with as little work as possible. These type of companies want everything confusing so it is more difficult for the management of the grease exhaust vent system to determine exactly what is going on. Do not allow this, timely inspections are a must along with clear pictures and showing the entire system. If it is a longer system like the one in our tale, also have them send a list where each picture was taking from along with a drawing of the system to clearly show you area looking at everything. The moral of the story, in wasting everyone's time and leaving the store in danger, they not only did not get paid for the re-cleans, they will never again work for this chain. They were bidding out other work in the same city and you don't have to guess how easy a decision it was for the restaurant to not use them for the other service also. They should have simply done the job properly in the first place.

Don

IKECA Annual and Fall Meetings

2011-04-26T18:24:00.003-05:00

Thanks to everyone who attended the IKECA Annual meeting in Naples Florida at the Hilton Hotel. It was sure hot down there especially going back to snow in MN afterwards. We all had a good time with a fabulous keynote speaker in Richard Flint. I highly recommend his books, video's and seminars. There was much work with the IEKCA Consensus Body meeting to review over 100 comments for the new IKECA C10 ANSI standard. The body worked overtime to complete their tasks and we had a good size crowd reviewing the process. I am glad to see members interested in the standard making process. There were a lot of good comments made and reviewed. I look forward to seeing everyone in Milwaukee for the fall seminars. Jack Grace and I are going to do a seminar on proper picture programs and I welcome all comments and requests on what you would like to see. We will show current programs and what we have seen both work and fail in the past. We will also show some new technologies. There will be many other seminars for staff of various levels.

Side wall fan hinge setup

2011-04-26T18:14:00.002-05:00

Many side wall fans have access issues where the ductwork is tucked above a chase way or permanent ceiling that is difficult if not almost impossible to get to. Also, continued access into ceiling tiles will require occasional replacement of the tiles as they were never really meant for continuous use every 3 or 6 months. I recommend installed hinges on the fans where inside access issues exist. Please note the structural support in the picture needed for proper sidewall fan hinges plus it is a good idea to set up a lock to keep unwanted guests out of the fan. It is like a door to the ductwork so you still need to secure it. This way, instead of crawling above a ceiling area with possible leaky access plates, you simply open up the fan similar to the roof mount upblast fans with hinges. Don't forget to install with the air intake facing DOWN!! This prevents rain from entering into the fan. You will also need to plan for additional flexible conduit to allow proper clearance. When complete, the cost for the side wall fan hinge is similar to an access plate, but far easier to use.

Don

Grandpa Don

2011-04-18T18:17:00.002-05:00

I am so proud that I had to post at least one personal blog. Here is a picture of my new (and first) granddaughter Brianna who was born last week to son Brandon and his lovely Cedar. Enjoy!

Fraudulent Pictures

2011-04-04T18:11:00.004-05:00

I consider this to be fraud. The KEC company took over 40 pictures of their cleaning of this system last week. They submitted them to the facilities manager as complete system cleaned to bare metal. When I did my baseline pictures of the system 4 days later, we found that the pictures were taken of a 4' area above the hood for they cleaned and avoided the other 90 feet plus of the system. The pictures speak for themselves.

Inspections pictures for ductwork with Electronic Precipitator

2011-04-04T18:02:00.003-05:00

Inspection last week inside of the ductwork between the

hood and the Electronic Precipitator. (Taken from the hood)

While Electronic Precipitators work very well when maintained, there are still major issues that need to be addressed. As you can see in the picture above, the ductwork up to the precipitator still needs to be serviced as often as any duct without the unit. The KEC company doing this work obviously did not think cleaning anything past the hood was needed. Even past the Electronic precipitator needs inspections regularly also cleanings are needed less frequently when they are properly maintained. Remember that they will fail and all of the system will need to be cleaned if you fail to keep a proper service contract in place and keep the filters clean and in working order.

Upblast Fan housing issues

2011-04-04T17:53:00.005-05:00

You can see the air vents in the motor for this fan starting

to plug up with dirt and dust. This needs to be cleaned

off during the normal fan service when doing belts, etc.

A hole cut into the side of the fan allowing the greasy air

and outside weather into the motor housing.

Another fan, they tried to keep the rain out but it only

deflected all the greasy air into the motor housing

Some of the most common fan issues deal with the interior of the motor housings on up blast fans. These areas are designed to be sealed off from the grease exhaust flow with only outside fresh air allowed into the area. There are many reasons for this as the electrical, bearing, motor, vibration isolators and fan belts are in these protected area and excluding them from the grease contaminated air not not only is a safety issue, but also greatly increase the longevity if the components . You can see in these pictures that someone cut holes in the fan to try to "cool down" the fan motor. No only does this fail to accomplish this, it actually ads heat To the motor plus contaminates the entire area with greasy acidic air. It also allows the outside rain into this area. What they need to do in install tubes at a downward slant that allows fresh outside air, but keeps out the rain and grease. This is the normal way most manufacturers set up their upbeat fans. Another area to watch is the gaskets on some motor covers. These need to be replaced on a regular basis. We also recommend using a vacuum to remove the duct from the motor air vents whe servicing the belts allowing them to cool easier. We use a small portable vacuum for this. One tng to mention, We do not recommend using direct drive fans for any grease exhaust system for many more reasons that I will get into right now. I will go into that in another article.

Issues outside the exhaust systems.

2011-04-04T17:45:00.006-05:00

Looking above the hoods with rags and plastic covering

the grease

Removing the cardboard shows the pooled old grease

throughout the top of this hood

The access plates do not follow NFPA96 plus are missing

the few screws they do have. You can see the leakage onto

the ceiling.

Inspections must also take outside the exhaust systems into concideraton. The fatal grease fre in Boston is a perfect example. Many duct systems are unseen above the ceilings and even straight up ductwork needs occasional inspection above the hoods. Leakage of the grease ends up outside the suppression area and can fuselage fires out of control before anyone even knows what is going on. This latest inspection clearly shows the 2 most common issues. Improper leaking access plates and leaking ductwork. Even properly installed ductwork can leak if not tested during the installation stage with high pressure water. This particular ductwork is not only leaking at the poor welds, it was actually bolted together and any previous sealant is long gone. The only permanent solutions is welding. You can see here the grease has been pooling above the hoods. This rancid old buildup even has rags trying to soak it up. I cannot think of a worse fire danger than grease soaked rags on top of a hot hood. Even without the heat. The rags could spontaneously combust without knowledge below until it is possibly too late to save the building and putting lives at stake. The next issue we see if the screwedon access plates. This does not follow any code even when new. At least the cleaning company should have replaced all the screws back properly and put a fire rated gasket on this plate. With the newer easy to install UL listed access doors on the market, these must be replaced with a proper listed door at does not leak. We can only imagine what would happen during a gease fire burning at over 1700 degrees behind these access plates and leaking ductwork. Please remember that proper cleanings and Inspections must also include the exterior of the ductwork and system as well as the interior.

Thermal Sensors in Grease ducts for Captive Air Hoods

2011-01-31T15:47:00.003-06:00

A KEC company had an exhaust system on a newer facility where the fans and make up air would not turn back on in the morning after cleaning and kept tripping the 110 volt control circuit breaker. This is a note from Captive Air, please read so you can take precautions and know what to do if you run into same issue:

Thermal sensors are being furnished on all projects to meet the International gas code. This code is in effect in most areas right now. The sensor is in a liquid tight quick seal, the same used for fire system nozzles. There is a small possibly that the water got into the wiring from inside the duct, unless there are water leaks in the welded duct. The water may have gotten between the fire wrap and the duct and ran down into the “j” box where the electrical connection is made. The sensor can be bypassed in the electrical panel, but may be a code issue later. - Captive Air

From Don: bypassing should not be a permanent option. Please watch out for leaking ductwork or seals that are leaking on the sensors that could compromise them as it will shut down the system is it shorts out. Contractors- please leak test all ductwork thoroughly. There is a section on proper water leak testing on the Enviromatic.com web site.

What some call "Clean" part 2

2011-01-28T17:09:00.007-06:00

The first 3 pictures are actual pictures sent to a facilities manager and posted on their web site on a cleaning job claiming that everything looks great and it should be approved to pay. They still show grease but these posted ones near the same areas show the truth and there were no pictures of these areas in the group. Either way even the "After" pictures are pathetic at best. One opinion is that they hope the FM's are not looking. When pressed by the Fm after looking at the pictures, this national vendor told the FM (and several of their other large clients) that these jobs are clean enough. They tell them that the "baked on and burnt on" grease is not flammable and does not need to be removed and that it not removable anyway. This is absolutely false and make to confuse and justify not doing a proper job to make more money!! This is what I consider fraud as this grease indeed does burn and will burn at over 1700F degrees!! A properly cleaned job will not show any grease or burned on grease on the sheet metal. If you see gouges. lines where cleanings stop, stalactites and stalagmites in the duct, it is NOT cleaned to any standard I know of including NFPA96 and the facility just completely wasted their money. The FM was so concerned and upset that they had the job inspected with clearer pictures of all the areas that showed most of the systems were not clean and the only areas that looked someone clean were the verticals looking down from the roof. None of the horizontals and little of the vertical above the hood were done as you can plainly see even by their own pictures. This national vendor still excused this job even after the clearer inspection picture showed the truth. I will let everyone look for themselves and give their opinion on this job and see what is actually going on out there. You need to take a closer look and do NOT accept work like this EVER!!. Your store, property, and peoples lives are at stake.

Pasta cooking- How bad can it get?

2010-10-19T17:17:00.008-05:00

Looking up the hood we can see the scrape marks where

someone tried to clean.

And when we look around the corner above the hood,

we can see where the cleanings stopped!!

A facility that sautes pasta uses a national vendor who subcontracts out all their work. There have been many questions in the past on how much grease pasta cooking actually produces. The national vendor requires pictures of all jobs. Please note that this is a difference vendor than previous posts as this one does not really specialize in grease exhaust vent system cleanings, they just do it as another service. I would assume that someone looks at the pictures and goes out to check on jobs. I know the others claim to do this although you can see clearly in earlier posts that they are not looking at hardly anything. Back to the point, take a look at these pictures and it is unbelievable how much grease these pasta saute places can produce. It is obvious by the pictures that this system has not been done in a long time(if ever), even though the hood sticker states it was done approximately a month ago. The worst part is that this is in a multi use tower in a downtown area. Imagine the fire and resulting damages to life and property if this grease ignited? I don't know when it would stop burning!!

National KEC Contractors using subs- Broken promises AGAIN?

2010-10-13T08:33:00.011-05:00

Looking up the stack from the

hood you can see grease in the

distance. It looks fairly clean

but when we look around the corner

Here is the horizontal past what

we could see. I wonder if these

pictures were ever posted on

the national companies web site.

This had just been cleaned!!??

Looking down from the roof, this

looks fairly clean, however....

Looking into stack, you can see that there is

years of grease and that is a block of wood in the duct

on the left side under all that grease!!

Looking up stack appears clean

But when we look around corner,

(this is a simple single stack oven system that

produces very little grease so we

know this is at least 10-20 years of

buildup.

I just finished inspecting several stores for a restaurant chain that is currently using a national vendor. They have been doing their locations for many years now with pictures from each cleaning job available on line. I question where the picture are actually getting taken from. As you can see, none of the horizontal ductwork has been cleaned in a very long time if ever. In fact, there is still a large block of wood buried in the grease in the duct from when the store was constructed over 20 years ago at one location. The pictures tell the story. These locations had also just been recently "cleaned" with full "pictures" of the completed job. You can see looking down the stacks what was cleaned, when you look past that in the hidden areas, WOW! Someday, these national companies are going to held accountable for their actions and the danger they put everyone in. I just hope we don't have someone injured or even killed as a result of their complete neglect and greed.

New York, Massachusetts, and Ohio Seminars

2010-10-13T07:57:00.008-05:00

Hi Y'all,

It's National Fire Safety Month. After a 2 and 1/2 weeks world wind tour across the country I am back home for a few days until the IKECA technical seminars in Atlantic City the first week in November. I had Inspections and meetings in Texas for a week followed by all day seminars (along with Nelson Dilg from Nelbud Services) on grease exhaust system inspections, maintenance, and construction in Holyoak, Massachusetts and Albany, New York(both were eligible for CEU credits for the participants) and then I was off to Columbus Ohio. We owe a great deal of thanks to our sponsors. First of all, the expenses for both Hollyoak and Albany seminars were covered by Americlean in New York. Even with Nelson Dilg and Myself donating our time, they were substantial and everyone appreciates it. Next were the Hollyoak Fire Department for the Massachusetts seminar and Simplex Grinell for the New York Seminar. Attendance was huge with over 120 people at the Massachusetts seminar including some KEC companies, various code officials, building engineers, restaurant staff, etc. The New York seminar was almost as large with the same amount (or even more) of code officials minus the KEC companies. We thank Nelson for donating his time and expertise. The programs went extremely well detailing out various issues with KEC and grease exhaust systems. There were great questions at both events including all the issues with access plates(UL listing for some sandwich plates are not for grease exhaust) and type 2 systems(In my opinion, they should not exist over any cooking equipment!!). I was then off to Columbus, OH to do another seminar for Nationwide/Allied Insurance. As in the past, one of the best companies in the world to work with and they were also very receptive with lots of good questions. We could have gone another hour easily. Last, I was at Hardgrove Cleaning in Columbus for a quality control seminar for their crews and management staff. Tonya and Hans Hardgrove were very gracious hosts as always. It is encouraging to see the enthusiasm of some of the IKECA member companies like Hardgrove as they strive to make improve their quality. The seminars gave me hope that we are all moving in the right direction, especially after the disasters I found during my inspection tours. I will post of those later. Massachusetts has adopted some of the most strict fire codes for grease exhaust vent systems in the country. They may be moving toward the same picture program Mpls, MN has adopted. New York just informed me the they have now adopted the new NFPA96-2008 edition. Nelson, Bernard, Myself, and the rest of IKECA are available for seminars upon request. While we cannot make the KEC companies around the world clean to standards, we are working very hard to educate them and to lead by example so the world will be a safer place.

Negligent cleanings can lead to Prison! Restaurant Owners, KEC Cleaners, and Managers need to read this!!

2010-08-09T17:36:00.006-05:00

This was an actual letter sent by a Fire Inspector in Kansas after they had a grease exhaust fire at the Red Robin there. It had just been cleaned by a company less than 72 hours before the fire. Excess grease in the exhaust system was determined to be the cause of the fire.

Don,

If god forbid, we have a fire here and someone is injured or killed (Firefighter or Civilian) given that I can prove it was cause by a hood cleaning company, the next stop will be felony criminal charges with a grand jury indictment.

If a firefighter is killed in the line of duty, because of the Public Safety Officer Death Benefit Act,

Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms and FBI will be more than happy to assist in convicting the responsible individuals

(property owners, cleaning company, persons doing the actual cleaning)

I hear that the federal prison in Leavenworth is nice in the summer.

Access Plates for Grease exhuast

2010-07-26T17:53:00.003-05:00

I have been seeing many F2 sandwich access plates being installed in type 1 grease ducts. These are NOT UL approved for grease duct installation as they are known to leak grease(badly in many cases). Ductmate makes a UL approved access plate called an Ultimate Plate. It cost more but it is a far superior access plate. Flamegard also has a UL listed access plate that can be field installed. I have seen claims that the F2 access doors adhere to NFPA96 standards. That is simply not true. Since the gasket is fire resistant but NOT grease resistant, it does not follow the current NFPA96 standard. 2008 NFPA96 standard 7.4.3.2 "Access panels shall have a gasket or sealant that is rated for 815.6 degrees C (1500 degree F), and shall be greasetight." DO NOT use the F2 plates for type 1 grease ducts!!

97% clean with excuse letter! Buyer beware

2010-07-26T17:38:00.007-05:00

During a routine inspection, a system was found with years of buildup throughout. The vendor was ordered to clean it up by the location. This vendor actually sent the following letter telling the customer how hard he worked cleaning a grease exhaust vent system and how he got it 97% clean. The pictures above that were taken after the cleaning tell a different story. If you see a letter like this, I suggest the restaurant staff starts looking in the system themselves as this is gibberish from someone who really should not be in the kitchen exhaust cleaning business. Imagine the resulting fire if this grease ignited. I wonder where the thinking process is sometimes. Upon re-inspection, we found the system does have adequate access to properly clean by a professional company, as you can see by the letter and pictures, they simply did not clean it. I wonder where the 97% came from? There is only so much duct and this does not even show signs of cleaning in the semi-plugged duct -Don

"The duct cleaning was quite an undertaking but thank God there are young guys in need of employment. We cleaned the entire system as much as possible to the following degree.

Main trunk- horizontal and vertical ducts entirely cleaned from fan to where splits into duct runners.

Fan- cleaned inside and outside.

Exhaust stack (post fan)- was not able to be cleaned due to the hardness of the grease. The stack is the last part of the system, it is exposed to the elements and the grease is baked on. However, this is not a fire hazard since it is far removed from the hoods.

Duct runners- cleaned via the new access holes at each individual hood. However, the runners are not of sufficient size to crawl into, so they are cleaned as much as humanly possible with one arm and a scraper.

Dishwasher duct- cleaned from hood up as far as possible wit a scraper. I didn't find other access.

All in all I would say 97% of the accumulation was removed, and I would suspect more can be removed in the coming months, as the grease that was inaccessible spreads out to fill the void.

Sorry for the quality of the photo's, I'm not tech savy and this is the best we have with the help of my kids to download...

Finally, to answer the unspoken question... YES, I will keep up on the duct cleaning. Now that we have man sized access holes, I would be a fool not too.

Please respond with any questions or concerns,

Thanks for your help, understanding and patience,"

KEC Contracts to avoid!!

2010-06-18T13:21:00.003-05:00

A cleaning company claiming to clean to NFPA96 standards actually has this in their contract and also on their web site. Make sure to read the entire contract when hiring kitchen exhaust cleaning companies so the something like this is NOT in the contract. A company doing proper and thorough cleaning would never have this in their contract as they can clean everything. Unscrupulous companies could claim anything they leave is either "Baked on", Pre-existing", or "inaccessible". NFPA96 requires ALL combustible material to be removed!! I wonder what they actually do clean? Believe it or not, this is actual words from their work order.:

"The Hood Service does not include scouring, or the use of power tools and does not including the cleaning of inaccessible areas or removal of pre-existing carbon deposits, baked on deposits, or stains, cleaning of back-splash panels, roofs, parking lots, or other building interior or exterior areas"

Taking on the worst!!

2010-03-12T15:02:00.006-06:00

Here is system all others have failed to clean claiming they cannot effectively remove wok style grease. Here are pictures of section of a system just cleaned 2 weeks ago before, during, and after a proper cleaning. All it took was time, elbow grease, and the proper equipment. You can see that the years of buildup can be removed effectively and the system is now clean to NFPA96. Sorry I am posting one of our own jobs, we have to show off once in a while!!

Grease Exhaust Fire in Mpls spreads to other businesses

2010-02-24T11:35:00.004-06:00

Here are pictures from a KMSP article of the catastrophic grease exhaust fire in Mpls at Heidi's kitchen on 50th and Bryant early Thursday afternoon 2/18/10 that destroyed 5 businesses including 2 restaurants. The fire started in two pans on the stove and quickly moved into the grease exhaust vent system. The Ansul system discharged and put the fire out below. As happens in many reported grease exhaust fires, the ansul system was unable to extinguish the fire that entered what we assume is a thick grease buildup in the ductwork above the hood beyond the suppression. From previous testing, buildup under 2000 microns(about 1/16" or so) would not have sustained a fire ling enough for the destruction seen. The the extreme heat from the burning grease(Over 1700 degrees) the fire quickly spread through the ceiling areas and the fire department could only fight the fire from the outside. According to the Mpls Fire Marshal, there has not been a permit for cleaning the grease exhaust vent system. Apparently, the system had not yet been cleaned and inspected under the new Mpls fire inspection program. The program has been in place only since Jan 1st so technically the cleaning might not have been due yet as it is required only every 6 months per NPFA96. It also might have been done by an unlicensed contractor. The fire is currently under investigation. By this time next year, this type of fire should be a thing of the past once the inspection program is in full swing and all the systems are cleaned at least once as required. Here is the article from KMSP Fox news below.

Several local businesses at W. 50th Street and Bryant Ave in southwest Minneapolis were destroyed

after an aggressive fire Thursday afternoon.

Firefighters were dispatched to a grease fire at Heidi's restaurant at 819 50th Street W. around 1 p.m.Thursday

afternoon. Crews found heavy smoke upon entering the building. Assistant Fire Chief Cherie Penn said fire investigators

believe a grease fire in the kitchen at Heidi's is to blame. They say two pans of grease started the fire.

The structure was deemed too unsafe for firefighters to work inside, so they battled the fire from the outside for hours.

Around 3 p.m. parts of the roof collapsed. The fire caused extensive damage to the entire building.

The building that caught fire was also home to Blackbird Cafe, Stacey's Jewelry Design, Patina gift shop and Patina's

newest store, Shoppe Local.

No serious injuries were reported, but Penn said two firefighters were taken to the hospital but will be okay.

National KEC Contractor using subs- Broken promises?

2010-02-11T15:49:00.014-06:00

Looking up stack above fryers

Same looking farther up

Jog above Fryers just past previous pictures

Horizontal above fryers

Looking down vertical on 2nd fryer system

Back of Fan Blades(birdscreen) on upblast fan on roof

The pictures above were taken at a large chain that was talked into a KEC program with a National Company that subcontracts its work and requires pictures promising full compliance to NFPA96. The owner of the company told me himself that he has had this program for many years and he even claims he views them himself. These National Companies that subcontract out work are a big buyer beware. If these National Companies are bidding your KEC jobs lower than everyone else(especially the competent regional or local companies who do the jobs right), claim they are requiring pictures and checking them, and subcontract the work out to a local or regional company for even less money, the numbers do not add up. The work shown in the pictures above is an example of the type of work that you may receive at a number of your facilities. It is simple. X amount of time to do a job = Y amount of dollars that need to be charged. If a company is bidding for less than X amount needed to do the job and actually paying another company another 10-20% or more less than that, it leaves the amount of time actually spent at the job about 40% less than is really needed (Y) and since many of them use companies that simply lack the equipment to do the job in a timely manner in the first place it is actually even worse. What the Facility actually gets form their KEC is about 10-20% of the job done for about 60% of the cost. The only winner in this game is the National KEC company who gets the money off the top no matter how badly the job is done. Of course, that is only as long as the facilities are not double checking their work(Which this chain that these pictures were taken from is doing now). The pictures above were just taken yesterday on a job done within the past month as you can see by the hood sticker. As usual, We cut out the names on the sticker to protect the guilty. The question is, do you think the owner or anyone else in this national KEC company has actually looked at this job or any actual pictures of this job in the past few years? This is hard to hide even in pictures if a competent trained KEC inspector (trained in looking over pictures of systems) is looking at the pictures or the job at all. I think the pictures speak for themselves. This is not a very long system and these are taken right above the hood, the back of the fan blades, and the horizontals above the hood, plus the hood.

Why Mpls went to inspections

2010-01-13T17:16:00.014-06:00

Above are pictures from several jobs that had just been cleaned by licensed companies in the city of Mpls in 2009 before they started their inspection program. The pictures were all taken right after the cleanings were done and they speak for themselves. These KEC companies left Mpls with no choice but to start an inspection program as they obviously could not be trusted. Almost all of these pictures are from restaurants in buildings with other tenants that could have had tremendous losses if the grease ion these pictures had caught fire. There was also a huge potential for loss of life as some were multi-story buildings. Some of these pictures are from the same companies that are yelling the loudest. Now everyone can see the real reason these companies are complaining about all the extra time they will needed to follow the new permit program. It is not because of the pictures or paperwork, it is simply the extra time needed to clean up all of this old buildup they have been neglecting for years now that someone is looking and holding them all accountable. There was no need to the permit charges if all of these companies has simply done their jobs correctly to the required NFPA96 standards as required.

Minneapolis Inspections

2010-01-13T16:52:00.002-06:00

The Minneapolis Fire Department has instituted a new permit program for all kitchen grease exhaust vent cleaning effective 1/1/2010. The permits start at $130 per cleaning. All jobs will require a permit at least 5 days prior to cleaning and complete digital pictures of the entire inside of the grease exhaust systems for each and every job e-mailed to the fire department within 5 days of job completion. The new ordinance also references NFPA96 scheduling guidelines and requires all systems are cleaned to bare metal. It also state that "There shall be no grease or carbonized grease left in the hood, duct systems, filters, or fan assemblies". Note that the black stuff I wrote about in previous posts is also called carbonized grease. All KEC companies inspecting and working in Mpls must be properly trained, qualified, certified, and licensed by the city of Mpls. This ordinance also includes inspection of the cooking equipment and requirement for cleaning the equipment if found heavily contaminated with grease buildup. Permit applications and Information can be found at www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/fire-prevention.asp This is the most comprehensive program of its kind in the country and it should make Minneapolis the safest city in the country for restaurants and their patrons. If done correctly, it could virtually eliminate grease exhaust system fires. I think this could potentially save taxpayers, restaurants, and insurance companies millions of dollars in losses. I hope the insurance companies see this program and extend the potential savings back to the Mpls restaurants. I also hope as the Mpls fire inspection program become more efficient, the cost of the permits could be reduced. This could be the prototype for inspection programs around the country- Don

Proof that Carbon grease does BURN!!

2009-10-20T18:49:00.006-05:00

Here are pictures showing carbon grease easily catching fire when ignited with a flame. An executive of a national KEC cleaning company told a Facilities manager for a national chain that they only clean down to the "Black stuff" as the "Black stuff aka carbon grease does not burn".He went on to say someone will have to start the carbon on fire in a duct work to prove that it burns. HERE IS HIS PROOF!!!! This goes to show that all grease and carbon MUST BE REMOVED EVERY TIME!! NFPA96 clearly states that cleaning companies must remove all combustible material from the grease exhaust systems and this is certainly combustible!!

System segregation confusion (The old Program Cleaning methods)

2009-09-22T11:31:00.004-05:00

The old saying always states- In confusion lies profit!! A new term called system segregation better know as Program cleaning is a perfect example of this. Years ago, when I starting inspections in other parts of the country, particularly on the east coast, I started running into "Program Cleaning" on kitchen exhaust systems. What was being done is that the cleaning company would have a system split up in to sections that should be completely done on a regular cleaning schedule (3 month frequency for example) on a rotation having only the hoods done one quarter, different parts of the ductwork done another quarter, and the fans on another schedule. The excuse was to save customers money. What we really found was the most of the companies (actually all of the ones we inspected)were unwilling or unable to properly clean most of the system. The Program cleaning made the entire process so confusing to the customer AND to the cleaning crews as to what was actually being cleaned each time that when we found years of grease in the longer duct runs, they simply gave the excuse "That was on on the rotation this cleaning" We even ran into this excuse after fires. It turned out that many areas were "never on the rotation" and often only the hood, fan, and short areas that could be easily reached were ever cleaned and the system was just as dangerous of catching fire as if nothing was done at all. It also makes it almost impossible to use inspection picture verifications as the pictures sent end up so confusing even and expert could not tell if the job is being cleaned correctly and timely. However, There are cases where very long system might only need to be done only 1/2 way, up to an environmental cleaning unit, or up to a tall multistory vertical run every 3 months with the rest of the system getting cleaned every other time. But, there must be a VERY CLEAR cutoff point completely verifiable that the grease buildup past that point is not exceeding NFPA96 requirements (2000-3175 microns or approximately a maximum of 1/12.6"- 1/8" thickness) between the cleaning cycles. That means that is if the uncleaned section exceeds the minimum requirements for cleaning even as little as a week or a month after the first part is done, it should be on the same rotation as the first part. People will split hairs trying to save money and these long systems have the most potential for hidden catastrophic fire. Fires don't always start at the hood and all this grease needs is an ignition source(Fan electrical short, hot coal, cinder, chunk of burning grease, or a rag bouncing up the duct before stopping in the built up grease to ignite it, etc) to start up. If the hood is cleaned, but the duct is not, it can burn hidden until too late to save life or property. I have always been very much against program cleaning as in my opinion, it leads to confusion and has long been a way for companies to simply get away with not properly cleaning the systems. It often leaves a system or systems in just as much danger as not doing the cleaning it at all.

Self Cleaning grease exhaust system and fans

2009-09-03T15:58:00.010-05:00

This goes to prove the point "All Grease Exhaust Systems are self-cleaning at some point". If all of the grease is not removed, a fire will remove it when the buildup is ignited. There are major issues with letting nature take its course. We received a call last week from a facility that was having fan problems. They were just cleaned by a contractor that offered to do the wok cooking style exhaust system for "Only $600". This was a lot less than other bids so they took it. They had a "Small" fire a week or two AFTER this discount cleaning was done. They tried to turn the fans back on and they kept blowing the breaker. As you can see in the pictures, there were good reasons for this as most of the fans were melted down from the fire. I guess they are clean now although not very usable. They saved around $600-$800 or so on the cleaning. They are still closed as of today (12 days after the fire) and may not be able to reopen for the weekend. I wonder what the replacement fans ended up costing along with the replacement Ansul system, repair of ductwork, and lost business? I know it was over 20-30 times the money they saved for the cleaning plus the now increased insurance premiums for several years. I am pretty sure the deductible will not replace the lost customers who will not longer frequent this facility and there are many other hidden expenses and losses not covered (or recovered). This was a very hard lesson learned but it could have been much worse.

60% plugged and just cleaned!!???

2009-08-19T15:08:00.007-05:00

This grease exhaust vent system was just cleaned in the past couple weeks in Ohio. These areas in the horizontal were hidden but easily accessible. (These are not close up shots in a hood, they actually are of areas inside an approximately 20" x 30" horizontal duct including looking into the access plate!!) The grease is so rock hard that it cut the inspectors hand when he tried to pass his fist through it. He could not even fit his fist through the grease as the hole for the air was too small. This would have burned for hours if not days!! The company sticker stated clearly that the system was cleaned to NFPA96 and IKECA guidelines. The company is NOT an IKECA member. What do you think?

Even good programs get fooled

2009-08-19T14:46:00.003-05:00

This is the area above the hood the cleaning company did not take picture of. This was just cleaned the morning before. You can see clearly where the cleaning stopped.
Hi all,

Much has been going on the past 2 months and this will take several posts. The latest is about what I consider the prototype fire inspection program that is one of the first in the nation using pictures similar to what the Envirospection® national inspection program does. While assisting in looking over systems, I took pictures of the horizontal ducts were taken within a few hours or days after cleaning. The inspector had received pictures from the cleaning company as required showing the clean ductwork. The pictures I took showed massive buildup throughout the horizontals with clear lines where previous cleanings stopped in every single system I looked at. When the e-mailed pictures were reviewed and compared, it was found that there were NO pictures of the horizontal ductwork and that the 20-40 pictures were all of just some vertical runs, the outside of the fans, and the back walls of the hood. The areas we found not cleaned must have been left off the pictures on purpose in my opinion. The company was warned along with other companies working in the jurisdictional area. Exactly 2 weeks later(this monday) I was asked to re-look at 2 systems that had been re-cleaned and pictures sent to both the facility management and the fire inspection department. This must have taken some major courage, but again the same cleaning company did not clean the horizontals on one facility and only partially cleaned it at another one that had wok style cooking . They again sent pictures of the system WITHOUT any of the horizontal even after warning from both the fire department and the facility. The Fire department is now adjusting the program to include full sets of base line pictures so the inspector has something to compare with so this does not happen again. This is critical as I have seen pictures both on line and via e-mail from several national companies showing systems that I have baseline pictures of and every single one of them were missing pictures of MOST of the ductwork and included none or only a little of the horizontal runs including some Japanese Habachi style restaurants with multiple hoods, wood burning systems, large national chains, etc. Everyone needs to take a closer look and start holding these companies that are withholding proper pictures and only sending ones of the hoods, fans, and partial verticals often only from the roof areas to try to pass off jobs that are not done hardly at all. In my opinion, this is fraud and should be dealt with accordingly!! I will write more later. Please feel free to respond as I like hearing comments on my postings.

Real Statements from cleaning companies

2009-06-15T15:09:00.002-05:00

Hi folks, Back from several seminars the past month plus a west coast inspection tour. I will be catching up on posts the next week or so with lots of info and pictures. Thanks for the MN Fire Marshals Association for hosting the Kitchen Exhaust seminar last week. It was nice to put faces to the many people I have had the pleasure to know over the past 3 decades and to catch up with some of the best and most state of the art inspection departments in the Country. (Inver Grove Heights and Eden Prairie to name two in attendance). I will be visiting New York in a couple weeks and look forward to meeting many of the code officials and restaurant staff in Albany. I just had some disturbing statements over the past few weeks that I need to share. They really put things into prospective on what some people are actually saying and doing in the field. On large National KEC company officer stated to a Regional Facilities Manager(He passed this on to me as he could not believe his ears!!) "We only clean down the the black stuff. someone will have to prove to me that the black stuff really burns plus it is difficult to prove how thick it is with a gauge" This is a clear case of cutting corners and putting lives in danger strictly for profit. This company has been undercutting jobs around the country and I have posted many pictures from their jobs and now we know why vast areas of systems they do are not getting cleaned at all. We also now know that this kind of very dangerous work starts at the top and may not be completely the workers or subcontractors fault as much as we thought. This is how companies try to manipulate NFPA96 for their own gain and not for what it really says or for what is right. There have been numerous fires in wood and broiler systems that have almost all "BLACK STUFF" in them. What do they think solid fuel produces and where many fires start? One would think that this would be proof enough for this person who should not even be in the business with their attitude!! This is not the only KEC company I have heard this from and restaurant customers need to be aware of what is going on and how much danger they are putting their facilities in. This person is cleaning broiler and wood fired systems in downtown multi-use multistory buildings and the loss of life and property could be catastrophic with their attitude!! Another different large National company told their subcontractor to stop cleaning after only 3 hours on a job that required more than 10 hours to properly complete as that is all they were paying. They also told the subcontractor that they have 10 millions dollars insurance so do not worry about it. The sub was also told to only take pictures of the "Clean Areas" as the contract was fairly new and they had to send pictures into the customer. All I can say is WOW!! I think fraud and swindle charges should be placed with these kind of unscrupulous KEC management personnel. They both have been in the business for a few years and know better!! What happens when one of these fires kill someone else!! I do not wish that on anyone!! NFPA 96 is very clear to remove ALL of the grease and carbon as it is ALL combustible!! I teach the proper term is and always should be down to the metal!! I will post more later along with some more juicy pictures!!

Don

Vegas

2009-04-01T20:03:00.001-05:00

I am in Vegas for the IKECA annual meeting. Hope to see you all there. I will post on the goings on later in the week when I get all caught up with everyone. Hope to see all of you greasers there!

Inspection after KEC company was warned!!

2009-03-31T11:00:00.007-05:00

National KEC company had just been warned about their cleaning work at a sister store (see previous post about looking at pictures of jobs)and were given one last chance. They must have thought all the attention was on the other store in the area as they were out cleaning this store on the previous Sunday night. Here are the pictures from my inspection on Tues. morning. You can see where they stopped cleaning when looking up the stack from the hood and also there is a picture inside the horizontal plenum above the hood where nothing was done. There was plenty of access above the ceiling for the horizontal. I wonder how they cleaned the fan intake(no access)? They did get the out take of the fan clean at least. They are no longer doing this account as of last week. The customer is looking into recouping this and previous cleaning costs as well they should!! I cannot believe they had the guts to even leave a bill!!

Someone cleaned this a month ago??

2009-03-31T09:53:00.014-05:00

Here are pictures from a job just started and these pictures are new from 2 days ago. This job has been getting done on a regular basis every 3 months by a National Company who is also certified and was taking pictures. I wonder where the pictures were actually taken from? The first job from this chain that was done had over 650 LBS of scrapped out grease the first night. Everyone thought that was bad until this location. Obviously the National Cleaning Company forgot about much of this ductwork. How to save money on cleaning grease ducts? This National Company has been finding out how, just skip most of it as you can see by these pictures!! Here are pictures from just the first nights work including a 6" chisel stuck into the grease to show how thick and the 30 gallon barrels and bus pans full of the scooped out grease that was taken out of just the first 30 feet. The KEC crew had to use a shovel for removing a lot of the grease once loosened up. You can see knee marks in the grease showing how thick it is where the KEC team crawled into the horizontal. You can also see the old towels sitting in the pools of grease. Imagine if a fire started in this duct. THere is more fuel that I have ever seen before. It would have been catastrophic. There is over 100 feet of horizontal ductwork at this location plus multi story verticals. None of this appears to have ever been touched. Access plates had to be installed in multiple locations. Only a few inches appears to have been cleaned up from the hood. I will post additonal pictures of the cleaning in progress and when complete on a later post for all to see. And yes- it is ethnic style stir fry grease. WOW!!!!

Why you must look at your cleaning pictures(and know what you are looking at)

2009-03-17T11:55:00.011-05:00

4 "after" pictures sent to a restaurant facilities manager for a cleaning job that was just done(by the KEC vendor that did the work!!). There is a closeup of the clean elbow section that shows some clean duct. The rest speaks for its self.

A facilities manager with a large chain has been requiring pictures of their jobs. The FM suspected the pictures were not showing the entire system. They requested inspections of several of these locations and it was found that less than 20% of the systems were actually cleaned in almost every single one. The FM ordered one of the larger jobs re-cleaned asap by the current KEC vendor who happens to be a National company. They send in their pictures as usual for the job. The facility was re-inspected and at this particular location, over 90% of the system at this location was not done(Even after the re-clean). The inspection pictures were sent to the FM to compare to what was sent the FM by the KEC vendor. After the FM looked over the pictures carefully, the FM realized that the KEC vendor actually sent in pictures of only a few of the areas of the lengthy ductwork runs and what they did send, most showed where they obviously did not clean to NFPA96 standards. This only goes to show, pictures are not worth anything if someone does not look at them and make sure they know that they are looking at the correct areas and that they are actually clean. Please note that these pictures are NOT before pictures, they are actually the AFTER pictures after the re-clean. I cannot believe they actually had the guts to send these. I am guessing that these KEC companies must assume that the FM's area will not have the time to actually go over the pictures and will accept whatever is sent or posted on a web site. We all work closely (including risk, facility, and restaurant managers/owners) to make sure t ALL of the pictures are taken in the proper order and that everyone understands what clean is and that all areas are clearly shown. These type of picture taking fraud (or like this one-plan boldness sending pictures clearly not clean and claiming the job is done) are making a farce of proper picture taking procedures and must be stopped!! As KEC contractor, you must have a competent (Certified) inspector look over all your pictures for all jobs every time and verify they are all there and cleaned properly. As a customer of a KEC, Please make sure you have a complete set of "Baseline" pictures to compare all future pictures to. This can and will eliminate the grease fire risk for your facility.

Grease duct fire article(Illinois)

2009-02-04T11:23:00.002-06:00

News flash. I can only assume some cleaning company was not doing their job correctly. Looks like Mother Nature was taking care of business here.

Burger King Fire

Reported by : WMBD/WYZZ TV - Sarah Barwacz

Sunday, Feb 1, 2009 @04:20pm CST

WMBD/WYZZ TV - PEORIA -- A local fast food restaurant closes after the kitchen goes up in flames. The Burger King kitchen on University goes up in flames around noon Sunday. Peoria Fire Department responded to the call, firefighters say there was a build up of grease in the exhaust system. They say this is the second time in six months this has happened. Customers and employees were in the restaurant at the time, but no one was hurt. The Burger King will be closed until all the smoke is cleaned out. The health department will have to give it the okay before it re-opens.

Midwest Inspection Tour

2009-01-26T17:43:00.009-06:00

All of the above were all just cleaned(and they had hood stickers)!!??

I was off touring the Midwest inspecting grease exhaust once again. These stores were just cleaned the night before and another 2 nights before. There were no access plates in any of the systems. The good news for the stores were that they did not need to get cleaned as often as they thought they did as most of the thick grease buildup in their systems was simply old grease that was never removed by the cleaning company in the first place. The normal buildup above these fryers required only cleaning every 6 months and not the quarterly schedule they were looking at from their insurance company when the insurance inspector saw how thick the grease was. Proper cleanings can now save you money on your insurance!! If you are a restaurant, be sure and look up the stacks every time they are done. Your store's safety may depend on it.

53rd Annual Institute for Building Officials

2009-01-26T17:06:00.008-06:00

Before cleaning, after someone cleaned, and after we stick the camera up the stack further and further up still!

Outside of the Type 2 system and Up another Bakery stack from hood last week

Hi All,

I want to thank the University of MN for having me teach my continuing education seminar on grease exhaust vent systems for the MN area Building officials at the St Paul Campus. We had over 50 in the class who braved the 20 below zero weather to learn all about grease (exhaust) and how to deal with it. I used many real world pictures and experiences showing proper installations, cleanings, inspections, etc. They were very receptive and there were quite a few good questions. One of the questions dealt with Type 2 systems which I do not think should exist over cooking equipment. In perfect timing, one of the participants asked me just how dirty a bread oven exhaust can get? My very next picture showed a Bakery Oven system we had just inspected. They always say a picture is worth a thousand words and this one was on point. We often find these systems severely built up with grease and flour. They are a huge fire hazard and should be on a regular cleaning schedule. I wish everyone would realize how difficult it is to clean type 2 system as they have almost zero containment for water, grease, and most of all fire!! I attached some pictures of inside the bread systems for all to see. There have been several fires over the past couple years in Bread oven systems including one in Mpls. I ask all to make sure they only install type one welded systems above cooking equipment as they all build up grease and need to be cleaned at some point(or contain a fire).

Another inaccessible duct tale!

2009-01-12T14:52:00.005-06:00

Well, here we are at a new year. I just received the following e-mail from a cleaning company. I don't think he gets it completely. I have posted my reply. He is actually a good company who is trying. That is why he asked for our help. Our regional manager stopped by after he was worried about a system that he could not figure out how to properly access and requested our assistance. He deemed this inaccessible as he did not have enough access to clean it properly. When we took pictures of the hidden areas of the horizontal, we found he was right and it was in pretty bad shape in the those hidden areas. What we also found was that it is pretty easy to make this system accessible. He should not have cleaned it without installing proper access or having it installed by the customer. That should be part of any job specification or exhaust cleaning contract. PERIOD! NO EXCEPTIONS! There is too much at stake from grease fires in these areas. That is exactly what KILLED the two Boston Firefighters last year. Here is the e-mail train with names omitted of course to protect the guilty(or only partially guilty in this case and this contractor cares and is doing something about it).

"HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well, ****** helped prove you wrong. After inspectin the duct at ******** yesterday he proclaimed it to be INACCESSIBLE.

When you say there is no such thing as "inaccessible duct". may I make a friendly recommendation: Change that to "There is no such thing as a duct that cannot be made to be accessible" In any case I really do appreciate the time you gave me in helping prove something to this customer. He may not act on this immediately but he will go to work on getting the necessary work approval for corraction. Thanks again.

*********** ************

********** ************"

Any my reply:

"Hi *******,

You are correct in a way, but I do have to slightly agree with you re-wording. I still think doing jobs without proper access is a cop out for cleaning companies not to do their jobs and that a certified company should not have any customers with inaccessible areas. On this job, ******** said you just need to install proper ceiling and duct access to make it accessible. You should have accepted this job only after installing proper access. ******* states there is no reason that this job has not been done correctly and the proper access has not been installed. We would have automatically installed proper access if we had been contracted to do this job. I think you have a misconception on what I am talking about. Just because a company has not installed proper access does NOT make it inaccessible. Again, in my opinion, it is a certified company's responsibility to make sure proper access is available or installed when they contract a job.

Don"

Old Year's quotes

2008-12-31T12:51:00.002-06:00

Here are some of the fun quotes we received just this past month or so. Feel free to e-mail me your favorite quotes from restaurant staff and cleaning companies.

1) Stated from a Chicago area restaurant manager: "I don't understand why you need to go on the roof tonight. I have been the manager here for the past 12 years and no one else ever has had to go to the roof to clean the hood system. I see no reason for your wanting to go to my roof to clean the system" (The exhaust fans are all on the roof, there is an inside access with no way to get to the roof on the outside, there is no access below the fans, and last but not least- the fans appeared to have never been cleaned when we did finally talk her into letting us on the roof)

2) Stated from a East Texas manager: "Our regional manager sent the last cleaning company home when the 2 man crew arrived to clean my exhaust system with a small bucket, a pair of rags and 2 cans of easy off oven cleaner, it was lucky he was here to meet them this time" (This is a steakhouse with multiple extensive exhaust systems, they were in pretty rough shape)

3) State from a MN area grocery store manager when we were looking at the deli fan on the roof the day after cleaning. It had snowed a few days before but there was not a single footprint on the roof: "They were just here last night and the checklist states they did the fans and the roof looked fine with no issues " I had my own personal favorite response "Maybe they practiced levitation and floated the 100' from the roof access to the fan. Of course since the fans are still dirty, the hinges and wiring are all broken, and there is grease sprayed all over the snow, it appears that they just turned the fan on and did the old spray and pray. They sprayed up the stack from their pressure washer with the fan going and prayed that the grease came off. Tis the season for that ya know" (The entire system except the bottom 2' of duct was still completely loaded with grease. The hood sticker and report were from that morning. It looks like their prayers were not answered)

4) From a cleaning company who were trying to explain why the grease exhaust system they just did was only cleaned up about 6" from the hood. "Our guys are smaller with short arms so all of the areas above what they cleaned are inaccessible with this crew as they could not reach it. Those areas are not part of this bid for cleaning to NFPA96 since it is all inaccessible to that crew and you were notified on the hood sticker when the inaccessible area exists box was checked off" My comment: Ya gotta be kidding me!! Of course, shorter guys can't reach anything. Go tell that to my staff!! All of them can reach all areas no matter what their height!! Also, maybe they could not reach behind the fan blades and down the stacks from the roof either(That section was also dirty) Maybe use some new technologies (like ladders)? Maybe bid the job to clean properly in the first place!! This all sounds pretty basic to me.

5) Restaurant manager in KC area after looking up the stack at the previous nights exhaust cleaning and finding the system was only cleaned up 3" from the hood: "Looks good to me. I have been working in KC for 20 years. All of the cleaning companies I have used leave grease up in the system. Is is supposed to be all clean when done? The hood is shiny!!" Folks, I have no comment for that one!!

After hour mall & building access problems

2008-12-08T15:34:00.003-06:00

There has been a string of National and Regional directives for Malls and other buildings banning all roof access before 7am in the morning. Some are city directives in mixed use buildings due to noise ordinances. One large ownership group is only allowing access between the hours of 7am and 3pm. This makes it almost impossible for quality cleaning companies to do the proper job without closing the restaurants as many systems require many hours to complete these the cleanings properly. This leads to a HUGE fire danger as the restaurants are forced to used cleaning companies that are willing to work within these hours by NOT CLEANING most of the systems. We all need to work together to keep the mall operations people informed about what we do, how much danger their directives are presenting to the tenants and property, and that the directives for these after hour accesses are poor decisions for more reasons than I can count. They also will loose tenants and sales if they force these restaurants to close for proper cleanings during normal business hours. In addition to this, how do shopping customers feel when they visit the mall and their favorite place is closed down for cleaning? They will start shopping somewhere else. How will shoppers feel when they have to evacuate the mall due to a grease fire? How will these security measures be explained if someone dies or is injured in a grease fire because their onerous measures lead to inferior cleanings as they forced their tenants into no other choice. How will they explain injuries from crews having to ignore safety measures due to these time constraints? How will they explain damages from crews having to ignore proper setups due to these time constraints? We must all act now and work together to make sure everyone understands how ignorant these policies are. It is not the landlords fault, they often only see part of the picture. The only way to combat this ignorance is to educate the security and operations people working for these landlords on all of the reasons we need proper and reasonable after hour access. Also, this means we need to take full responsibility for training our own crews on safety, security, and the protection of both our customers and the landlords property while on the job.

Contractor Excuse Letter on duct leaking

2008-12-08T11:37:00.014-06:00

A customer received the following letter and I almost fell out of my chair laughing until I realized these guys were serious. My on staff welders even read it in complete disbelief. The letter was basically excuses on why all of the grease(and water during the cleaning) pouring out of the welded seams from a grease exhaust vent system they had installed was not their fault. It also was a letter to the customer on why they would not repair it to meet NFPA96 standards. Remember that this duct is also leaking grease into the ceiling areas BETWEEN the cleanings. This contractor recommended not cleaning it with pressure washers and using Steaming, Foaming, Low pressure methods(Garden hose I suspect), etc. Foaming only works for companies that lack proper equipment to correctly clean the job with pressure washing equipment specifically designed for grease exhaust cleaning. The foam is simply a different way to apply chemical and there are better way. We found it takes almost twice as long using foam as it does using higher quality engineered equipment. Plus, the foam was almost completely ineffective on thicker greases. It only works well on thinner grease where you really don't need it anyways. This contractor obviously has no idea that welding ductwork so it does not leak is the standard in the rest of the country and is the standard for his area also. They have had major issues with passing leaktests for other restaurants and even were the ones that used the JB weld we showed in an earlier blog. My response is after the letter.

"December 3, 2008

********* *********

******** *******

****** ******** ******

*********, ** *****

RE: ******* ********

Sub: High Pressure Grease Duct Cleaning

Dear ********,

In reference to the issue of water leaking from the grease ducts at the cooking hoods during the cleaning process we have made site visits and and performed research on the cause of this problem and have the following comments.

We believe the problem is directly related to the use of very high pressure water (1500 P.S.I.) by your hood cleaning vendor to remove grease from the duct work. While this method is very effective in removing the grease, it is also exceeding the design specifications for the ductwork and causing damager to the ceramic fire wrap, gaskets on the access doors and surrounding finishes.

The accepted testing method in Washington State for the welds on grease ducts, per the Washington Building Code 51-52-0506, is a light test performed by the Mechanical Inspector or an independent special inspector, depending on the JHA (Jurisdiction Having Authority). The light test is conducted by using a 100 watt light passed behind the welds to confirm their integrity.

A national standard for grease duct testing as listed by the NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency section #96) is for the welds to withstand a 0.10" water column for 20 minutes to assure a hermetic seal. The pressure used during this test is the equivalent of less than one pound per square inch (similar to 1/8" of standing water over the welds)

During our investigation ******* has confirmed that the exhaust ductwork on this project was installed per specifications and inspected to code. We believe that the water leaking issues are directly related to your vendor using a high pressure method that exceeds all applicable testing specifications. There are two apparent coursed of action to resolve this issue.

1. Change the method of cleaning to a lower pressure water last, steam, or foam method that meets the design parameters of the installed ductwork.

2. Retrofit the existing ductwork to meet the demands of high pressure cleaning method now in use. There will be cost associated with this option (fire wrap removal, shut down, access hatch replacement, pressure testing, welding, and re-installations of fire wrap).

Please contact ******** directly with your response or questions,

Sincerely,

******** ********, Project Manager

AND MY RESPONSE:

"Hi *******,

My professional opinion is that a proper weld should not ever leak grease or other liquids. Ductwork welds that we have water pressure tested over the past 15 years have never leaked after passing inspection. I have talked to many welders about this situation. They ALL agree that any proper welds on 16 gauge black iron ductwork should easily withstand high pressure water in excess of 3000 PSI, even at point blank range. One must remember that the high pressures used are very similar to what is used on car wash and other pressure washing projects and should have no effect on proper welds or the 16 gauge ductwork. We know that the light test does not work as many systems that have passed the light test have failed the water leak test(over 90% failure rate on over 200 leak tests in the past 2 years). The same certified welders(including many working for ******* and ********) informed me that the only way the welds leak liquid on a 16 gauge black iron duct is if they were not done properly in the first place. Leaks on improperly welded ductwork can easily be hidden by slag and construction debris, but grease will find them over time. Proper welds on grease ducts never leak unless they rust our which rarely happens in black iron duct unless there is a permanent hood wash system in place and the systems are very only. Even then, the grease buildup protects the ductwork and welds. I have 2 welders on my staff that worked for many years at ****** ******(a ***** *****) that have also stated that proper welds never leak and the General Manager of the Blower Balancing and Repair Division, ****** ***** stated that the "High Pressure" is a huge misconception and the high pressures will not hurt the ductwork or welds in any way. Remember that the nozzles are 1500 psi at the tip. With 15 degree to 25 degree nozzles that are used, pressure drops dramatically only a few inches from the tip. High pressure washing has been an industry standard for over 30 years. The University of MN, Chipotle Mexican Grills, Sarku of Japan, the City of Maple Grove-MN, and others have found the light tests do not work and all require high pressure water leak tests at 1500 PSI on all their new grease exhaust systems. I can pass my hand in front of a 1500 psi pressure washer nozzle with ease at a distance of 6" which is where the spray is normally at for most water leak tests. NFPA96 requires the duct work to be seamless and liquid tight. My professional opinion is that 1500 PSI(or even 3000 PSI) is not having any effect on the integrity of the welds and never will have an effect. The welds are leaking grease and water and need to be repaired asap. The only thing the high pressure would damage is the dust, slap, and construction debris covering the holes in the welds. Where is this section the letter refers to in NFPA96? It does not exist that I know of and I am extremely familiar with NFPA96 and do many seminars nationwide on it. What is actually mentions in NFPA96 2008 Edition, Chapter 7.5.2.1: "Shall have a liquid tight continuous weld...". I think he was referring to the Building Code Section on testing systems with air pressure or something similar. The access plate issue is mute since they are usually off when the system is getting cleaned with high pressure, plus the gaskets are replaceable items. Was the Ductmate Ultimate Door used here or the Ductmate Sandwich doors(or something else)? The Sandwich doors are NOT UL listed for grease ducts. Only the Ultimate Door or the Flamegard Doors are. The only way the "high water pressure" is damaging the ceramic fire wrap is if the ductwork fails the NFPA96 standards and leaks into the wrap.

Don Pfleiderer, CESI, CESC"

Subcontracting exhaust cleaning work

2008-11-30T10:59:00.007-06:00

I received a call a week ago from a new company trying to clean nationally. They wanted us to do some work for them, but they did not want our hood stickers used, only theirs. I refused as always. They also said they are following up with pictures. We just inspected their work in the Midwest in another area and I wonder where the pictures are coming from as you can see the old buildup in the attached picture they are not paying much attention. This is very typical from what I have been seeing from almost all the companies who are subcontracting their work around the country. Many pictures in this blog are from some of those companies. I do not believe in sub-contracting cleanings and we never will subcontract work ourselves. Cleaning companies need to do their own work with their own employees as grease exhaust fires are to damaging and costly to leave to others. I think there is no way a customer can get their moneys worth and most simply sub out to the lowest contractor so often restaurants end up with companies they had previously fired or would not normally use. It is also my opinion is that cleaning companies are fools to do this sub-contracting work for many reasons. I will post these in an article I am currently writing along with my Southern Regional Manager. I have been contacted many times in the past about this and have been burned badly many years ago so I speak from experience. We have refused all sub-contracting work since that time when I looked into it and realized how bad of a value it was for the restaurants and how it reflected on our company to be associated with these companies.

The latest from a National Cleaning Company

2008-11-30T10:33:00.013-06:00

1st three show the bad areas and the last picture show they actually tried to clean something.

This store was getting cleaning regularly by a National Cleaning company. It is located in the SE United States. They have already had a fire in years previously and here is how the system was getting left. You think someone would have known better. They had been trusting the National Cleaning company. It was cleaned not more that a few weeks prior. These is the same outfit as some previous posts in other parts of the country. I had just talked to the person in charge of the National Company's quality control about all the problems I have been finding at a meeting earlier this month. He claimed they have no quality control issues and walked away from me. They are a certified company. It is only a matter of time before someone calls them on their work and holds them accountable(Other than me) although I think that has already started from what I have been hearing. The pictures are pretty self explanatory on why these stores have been having fire and exhaust problems. Of the stores we have already surveyed, every one of them has had at least one grease exhaust fire and there were several different companies cleaning them. The chain had contacted us after a bad grease exhaust fire in the South Central US. (see previous posts). I have some pictures from some of their stores that are getting properly cleaned in the Northern US. I will post them separate.

What some call "Clean"

2008-11-30T10:01:00.007-06:00

This is one of the "AFTER" pictures sent by a cleaning company to their customer!!

The following e-mail was actually sent to the facilities manager at a large chain about a store in the SE United States. There area several stores they are cleaning and I included the Facilities Manager's comment afterwards about the attached picture. This is hard to stomach, but it is often what a lot of exhaust system cleaners think. These people need to be held accountable and forced to start doing their job or go away and stop putting peoples lives and properties in danger. They are NOT a certified company. They also do janitorial work. Of course I hid the name to protect the guilty as always. This is the 2nd janitorial company attempting to do hood cleaning in this blog in the past 2 months. The other one was up north. Any company following IKECA, NFPA96, and Viro specifications would do the standard exhaust cleaning procedure of simply scraping out and power washing the duct(which is what I think this guy calls "Flooding the duct") so all grease is removed down to the metal. Burnt on grease is still grease and in truth, this job is not near as bad as several others in previous posts. My opinion is that all this company's excuses are simple BS for not doing their job!!

*****,

Attached are the pictures for ******, *************, and *************

"****** Mall store, you can see the grease is burnt on the wall of the duct. This is the best I can do unless we go in and scrape it and flood the duct. I think it's o.k. to operate as long we can stop future buildup. The mall is 3 levels as you can see in one of the pix's and not accessible."

Thanks, ***********

******** *****, Inc

And the FM's comment when I asked him if these were before or after pictures plus his comments on the first letter:

"They're all after pictures sadly enough. I also like how he leaves out all the horizontals in the other store pics."

"I've explained that nothing short of of down to bare metal will be sufficient over and over again and he just doesn't seem to get it......" We'll see, Thanks ******** ********

Chinese Restaurant in 12 story + office building-Just cleaned?

2008-11-18T10:10:00.011-06:00

We were called into a job that was having major leakage issues yesterday morning. Turns out the system was just cleaned Sunday night(the night before) by a company with various claims on their web site that we will let you all decide what is true or not. The pictures of the "completed" job along with the hood sticker are shown above. I have blurred out the name and number of the company and do not list the name here to protect the guilty! Here is what they they state on their web site and my comments:

-Using Certified Hood Technicians(They are not listed with IKECA so where are they certified?)

-Offering email, or phone scheduling and follow up

-Completing Our Hood Checklist at Every job (Must have forgot about the ductwork checklist-see attached pictures just taken)

-Offering Digital Photos of your Exhaust Hood System(Note they left the work "Clean" out of this statement! I wonder if they sent pictures of these areas to the customer?)

-Retesting our Hood Technicians every six months (What test? There are no certifications I know of require 6 month retests or even offer them, maybe they should retest their crews on what clean is!!!)

-Using the most up to date cleaning technologies (Hmmmm- better start using old technologies again as your up to date ones seem to be leaving an awful lot of the grease behind!-See pictures above)

Sorry if I seem facetious , but I cannot stress this often enough that words are only that. This job is in a 12 story office building with hundreds of people in the building during operating hours. If this caught fire, it is doubtful everyone could get out in time. The duct travels across the building 100' of so to another horizontal outside the wall to a 12 story vertical stack to the fan on the roof. WOW!! You must look yourself or have someone with a long track record of inspections handle it. Also, check what the company's certification(s) really are and either go to the certifying body's web site or call them to verify. We did contact this particular customer and the comment was simple. "They are half your price so we will stay with them" Obviously out if site is out of mind for this chain and the safety of all their staff, their customers, and all of the other tenant's staff is not important to them.

IKECA Meetings

2008-11-10T16:01:00.004-06:00

Hi to everyone,

Back from St Louis and the IKECA Technical Conferences. I want to thank all of you who stuck it out through Saturday to hear my presentation on "CLEANING TO THE HIGHEST STANDARD". Your attention to what I was trying to teach really hit me that there are others who really care about their job out there. I think we have IKECA going in the right direction and I hope to have every member following NFPA96 standards along with the Viro picture and inspection protocols that holds everyone accountable for cleaning the complete systems free of grease every time. It starts with everyone involved and the faster everyone gets up to speed, the safer all the restaurants will be. The restaurants have assumed everyone is doing the job and are trained. Now we can make sure!! I am sure you have all heard the news that Boston is going to require strict regulation and licensing for all grease exhaust cleaning companies. New York and Mpls are also moving in that direction. For all of you out there that do not take this seriously, you will be left behind and I can only hope the authorities will start taking action against you. What we do is DEADLY SERIOUS!! We are supposed to protect lives and properties by doing our jobs right with NO INACCESSIBLE AREAS!! If every certified company starts doing our jobs right with proper documentations(with complete pictures!), inspections, scheduling, and accountability, we can virtually eliminate future grease exhaust fires at our customers!! See you all in Vegas next year!! Clean on and all fellow greasers(actually degreasers!!)

Don

Water leak testing grease ducts- trials and tribulations

2008-11-10T14:46:00.004-06:00

Here is an e-mail train from a leak testing job getting done on the west coast the past week. Imagine life before we started doing the high pressure water leak testing!

FROM: ****** *****

SENT: November 10,2008 3:21:03 PM CST

TO: ***** ******

SUBJECT: ****** Restaurant ******* ***** Problem

Wow, thank goodness we're using this leak testing program. I can only cringe thinking out how bad most of our restaurants are in this respect. If it wasn't for the thousands of pounds of grease plugging the holes we'd have major leaks everywhere. Again this program is awesome, how people ever managed to justify light tests or smoke tests I will never understand.

Thanks,

***** *******

Project Coordinator ************* *********** ************ ********

********@*********.com

FROM: **** ****

SENT: Monday, November 10, 2008 11:50AM

TO: ***** ********

SUBJECT: ****** Restaurant **** **** Problem

Don,

10-4. I have made myself real clear with this. They have gone through 5 welders. I do not think I am too popular, but I will not compromise.

Thanks,

****** **********

FROM: **** ********

SENT: Monday November 9, 2008 4:07PM

TO: ***** ******

Hi *********,

Been there, done that at several ******* and some ****** were pretty bad in other places also. Entire systems had to be replaced at a couple new stores. That is why we are having you leak test it. Bill for your time and do NOT pass this store until it does not leak AND has proper access plates installed. ***** and ****** do not want issues (leaks or access) after store is open so we want to make sure all is good when you sign off on the leak test.

Don

FROM: ***********

Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:05:53 -0800

TO: **************

SUBJECT: **** Restaurant ****** ****** Problem

Good Morning Don,

I have spent the last week going back and forth to ***** ***** on this restaurant. Just to give you the head up as to what is going on. It took us 3 days just to clean the **** **** out and now we are on day #4 of water testing. The builder has decided to make the grease duct installer remove the grease ducts and start all over again. Don, I think they are only realizing now what has hit them. I cannot and refuse to pass the water test until up to complete standard. Don, it was so bad at one stage you almost needed an umbrella at the store.

Please call me I would very much like to discuss this with you further. Best number to reach me *** *** ****

Thanks,

********* ********

****** *******

St Louis

2008-11-06T18:53:00.005-06:00

Hi all,

It is Thursday night and my staff and I have all arrived in St Louis for the IKECA technical seminars. I plan of presenting one on personal responsibility for KEC's at 11AM on Saturday so please find your way down there! I hope to see you all there. It is at the Hotel Lumiere at 999 N. 2nd St in St. Louis. Lots of pictures of course and I want to drive home the point on the expectations and responsibilities of a KEC under NFPA96, IKECA, and Enviromatic standards. Inaccessible areas and not removing ALL of the grease and carbon are NOT OPTIONS IN MY BOOK!!!! There was another grease fire in Texas at a steakhouse(well know national chain). The horizontal grease duct caught fire due to excessive and old grease buildup. The KEC(kitchen exhaust cleaner) contractor was also a local fire fighter. He closed his business after the fire. There was no access into the horizontal and it was completely hidden. (he did not use a camera to check it out) He simply told the customer he knew it was clean because clean water was pouring out while power washing the system from the roof "after a while". UNREAL!! This is a huge misconception and it is a shame it took a fire for everyone to figure it out. The investigation found extreme and old grease buildup throughout the horizontal ductwork except for a small clean stream in the middle of the bottom of the duct. WOW!! At least the new ductwork after the re-construction are all straight verticals. Take care and see y'all in St Louie!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

2008-10-31T10:12:00.002-05:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL!! I was going to dress as a greaser after crawling though a 100 foot run scraping out a system full of wok style grease last night, but ran into several problems. 1) I could not get unstuck from the seat. 2) My tyvek suit was getting too hot to hang around in. 3) My dog now follows me everywhere thinking I smell yummy!! 4) My nice bright yellow suit ended up so dark, no one can see me at night. 5) I then thought it would be funny to do the velcro trick and jump on a wall with my greasy suit. The suit and myself ended up all ripped up when they had to extricate me from the wall with a large power washer and scrapers. I am all cleaned up now and going as a ............ ( to be continued)

Hope y'all keep clean for Halloween and not a beast that is greased!!

Don

Another inspection from company stating they were certified

2008-10-29T16:56:00.006-05:00

I was out inspecting another system from a janitorial company stating they were IKECA certified. IKECA has never heard of them and here are pictures from the job. Make sure you call IKECA to verify if your cleaning company is indeed certified AND is a member. Certification only means they passed the test. Active members promise to adhere to the IKECA and NFPA96 guidelines. The same goes with the Grease Police and other organizations. Make sure the company you are using or considering to clean your grease exhaust vent systems are ACTIVE members of a certification organization who have promised to adhere to the organizations guidelines. The attached pictures speak for themselves. The job was just cleaned 2 days prior.

Water leak testing ducts

2008-10-29T15:52:00.013-05:00

1st pic: Water leak testing in progress with a welder on top of hood doing the repairs. 2nd pic: Heavy buildup of grease from leaking ductwork above a hood is a huge fire and health danger. 3rd pic: View of electrical for hood lights from on top of hood- they are open on top of hood and grease can enter here. 4th picture- what someone tried to seal up a new grease duct with. 5th picture- inside the new duct that someone just used JB weld on a week ago!

I know many of you are frustrated about leaking ducts. With the fire in Boston showing everyone the dangers of ductwork leaking beyond where the suppression system can fight the fire, this has become very important. High pressure water leak testing has been getting done for the University of MN for many years and has worked out very well with no grease leaks in any of the tested systems. A high pressure water leak test program has now been started on new ductwork installations for several large chains. This is a low cost method that insures the ducts do not leak and also allows the cleaning contractor to verify proper access plate and fan installations. A spin jet is pulled through the entire system from the hood to the outlet at about 1500-2500 psi at 4GPM. There is a welder on site during the test with a torch to dry off the leaking point and a welder to repair the leaks. With over 200 leak tests in the past 2 years, here is what we have run in to. Approximately 10 stores passed the leak test first time with no leaks at any of the welds or in the system. All the other stores failed the initial leak test. 30 of the stores had more than 20 leaks and took at least 2 days or more to finally get them welded up so they did not leak. 4 stores had to replace all or part of the new system as the welding was so poor they could not be repaired enough to pass the leak test. Over 100 stores had 5 leaks or more and required more than one retest. 3 stores across the country had contractors who even tried to use JB weld to repair the leaks. 1 store used roofing compound. (They all failed or course and I included pictures of one from just a week ago) To keep things in prospective, almost all of these system had passed a light test, a pressure test or both before the water leak tests. Most of the major leaking found has been at the corners and at the duct to hood connections. We have had complaints about the leak testing from contractor who have been failing that the high pressure has been blowing out the welding. That is such a poor excuse. There is no way this low of pressure that is similar to what car washes use would harm a weld in any way and we have certified welders who could not believe a welder would even suggest this. One thing we have found is that once the ducts have passed the water leak test, they have not had any leakage in the future. We have a standard testing form and procedure guide available to anyone who would like them. This is the way of the future and a sure, fairly inexpensive way to make sure grease duct conform to NFPA96 and do not leak!!

Major Mall Management Group On Board with Picture Inspections

2008-10-15T17:23:00.004-05:00

A major Mall owner/management group has just preliminarily approved implementing the Enviromatic National Inspection Program for all of their properties. This will require all tenants to clean their systems to NFPA96 standards and have the picture program in place for verification on every job for every system. It also applies to their own trunk lines for food courts. They own malls all over the country and this involves hundreds(possible thousands) of systems. This will also require all cleaning companies to be properly insured and certified plus the cleaning companies must submit proper and complete pictures to the property owner for review of every cleaning. Any missing pictures (see Enviromatic Picture guide) or areas found not cleaned to NFPA96 and Viro specifications will require a re-clean within 2 weeks and if it still fails inspection, the mall management will hire another company to finish the work. This will go a long ways toward completely eliminating the fire danger in their malls and making the shopping experiences safe for both the other tenants and the customers. For those of you cleaning systems in major shopping malls and not doing your job thoroughly, be aware that you had better start cleaning up all these jobs as you will soon be forced to do so by the mall management. This also includes proper roof cleanups and proper disposal of all rooftop grease and cleaning waste.

Mid south Inspection and Speaking Tour

2008-10-15T16:45:00.010-05:00

ABOVE: Pictures from 10/14/08 inspection in Mid South above char broiler system

Hey out there to all restaurant folk and greasers. On the inspection and speaking trail again in the mid south and Florida. Spoke to a large group for the Florida Hospital dietitian managers at the Sarasota General Hospital in Florida today. I was invited by Doug Schueller from Bentley Resources out of Bradenton. Bentley has a proper picture program in place and wanted to work with us to verify that they are doing the right job and are taking all the proper steps to verify that they are on top of each and every job output. Now, after the presentation, many of the hospital personnel realize what they are facing and that out of sight must never be out of mind. We went over both proper job verifications and documentations along with IKECA certifications for companies. I asked them how quickly they could evacuate a hospital in the event of a catastrophic grease fire. The answers were not very encouraging for those staying at hospitals and the managers all wanted to know what measures they could take to prevent that from happening. We went over the National inspection picture program and how to implement it on a local level for each facility. I went over how to make sure their cleaners have a proper picture program and will be assisting them in making sure their facilities are getting their jobs done to NFPA96 standards every time!! We stresses that inaccessible areas cannot ever be permitted to exist in a hospital setting (or any facility for that matter) Things for very promising for the people of Florida in the near future for their safety in these hospitals. We can only hope that all the other states follow suit. I was in the mid south doing inspections and have attached pictures of a job that was cleaned a little over a month ago. I made a detailed report that this most likely is many years of grease and there are clear areas where the cleaning stopped. There was over 100 feet of horizontal above a boiler in a downtown area. There sure looks like more than enough fuel in the system to overload any suppression system. The greasy cardboard on top of the duct above the hood was an added danger that needs to be addressed. Make sure to always check for leakage and flammable items above the ceilings as those areas are beyond the fire suppression system's coverage area and are out of sight if they light up. Have fun and keep on preaching the gospel on safe exhaust systems!! Always feel free to get ahold of me if you have questions on a proper quality control program for your facility or company.

Las Vegas Quality Control Seminar

2008-10-10T08:46:00.003-05:00

Western Commercial Services invited me to present our quality control seminar Friday, September 26th. It was very well attended by almost all senior supervisory staff and all of the office staff. It was quite a crowd and they really want to dig into doing the proper procedures needed for quality control. I was in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with Pressure Kleen two week prior doing the same seminar with very positive results. I will also be doing the same quality control seminar at the IKECA meetings in November in St Louis. It explains how to do the picture documentation properly, proper job followup, and what is actually expected from both the crews and the management staff. I also stresses the importance of NOT ACCEPTING INACCESSIBLE AREAS AT ANY JOBS!! I think Las Vegas is in good hands. I am in Chicago this week doing the inspection seminar for a large insurance company that is looking at saving their customers premium money for getting their systems properly cleaned and documented. This could be a good thing for everyone. 2 more seminars are planned for next week including one for Doug Schullers group in Sarasota, Florida. We have a lot of companies across the country starting to seriously look at doing the job the right way and put a proper quality control program in place. Feel free to contact me if you want to do things the right way. This is not an advertisement as I do not charge for this, I simply want to change and dramatically improve the way kitchen exhaust cleaning companies are doing their jobs!! Lives may depend on it!!

Major city starting picture inspection program

2008-10-10T08:31:00.005-05:00

BIG NEWS!! A major midwest city has starting planning a comprehensive inspection program following both NFPA96 and the Enviromatic National Inspection Program protocols(See www.enviromatic.com) to start asap. They are hoping to start the first of the year. This will include a requirement for all cleaning companies in this city to pull permits for each cleaning and submit complete picture and report documentation for each cleaning job. The requirements for the pictures will be the same as the Viro National Inspection Program. The Fire Marshall and Fire Chief both believe this may completely prevent future catastrophic grease exhaust fires in their city and also bring many systems into compliance. The fire in Boston and resulting investigations of this and other fires were a major impetus for going forward with the new program. All companies will be required to clean all systems to NFPA96 specifications and all areas WILL BE MADE ACCESSIBLE in this new program. The program will not allow companies to skip any areas nor will it allow anyone to simply report that "inaccessible areas exist"!!! This could be very interesting when all of the fly by night companies actually have to clean the systems properly AND DOCUMENT IT FULLY WITH PICTURES THAT WILL BE VIEWED BY EXPERTS!!! If you have any other fire departments in the country that are interested in doing the right thing like this city is, let them know that they will no longer be alone and there will now be proper procedures in place to implement their inspection programs. Feel free to contact me for assistance. I will keep everyone posted when and where once the ordinance is passed and how the program is working.

Grease Exhaust Fire in Washington DC spreads to other buildings

2008-10-10T08:13:00.002-05:00

A smoky two-alarm fire damaged four Dupont Circle buildings early yesterday afternoon, routing lunchtime diners from two popular restaurants but injuring no one, authorities said. Fire officials said the blaze in the 1200 block of 19th St. NW appears to have started in the kitchen of Penang, a Malaysian restaurant at 19th and M streets. It most likely spread through a vent above the stove and into portions of three adjacent five story rowhouse-style buildings that include offices, a Starbucks, and Porter's, a bar and restaurant at 1207 19th St. N.W. The official cause of the fire is under investigation, "but it looks to be accidental" said Fire and Emergency Services spokesman, Alan Etter. Keven Moran, owner of Integral, a consulting firm at 1203 19th St. NW, said he was having lunch with a colleague down the block when he noticed smoke pouring from the roof above his fifth-floor office. " It was unbelievable" he said, " Black, black smoke." Damage to his office and most of the upper floors was primarily from smoke and water, officials said. At the height of the blaze, 110 firefighters responded to the two alarms, Etter said. Offical said Panang appeared to be the most seriously damaged business. Fire Capt. K.R. Moore said that firefighters were forced to cut a hole through the second floor ceiling of the restaurant and that the joists between the second and third floors had been weakened by the blaze.

By Bill Turque, Washington Post Staff Writer

The real truth about "Inaccessible areas exist"

2008-10-10T07:23:00.014-05:00

I had 2 interesting calls a few weeks ago, both are subcontractors for a company doing national contracts. There are several companies that sub out work, but this was only one of them. The first call from the SE area claimed that he does not get paid enough to clean the horizontals. He claims that he has told the contractor about that and there is nothing they can do with the locked in pricing for this particular chain. He even said he "Covers his rear" by checking of the box on his hood sticker "Inaccessible areas exist" The truth was that these areas are fully accessible, but he decided that he really did not want to access it due to pricing. I think he really focused on what I think is one of the major flaws in the NFPA96 codes. It allows the option to notify clients about inaccessible areas. That just leaves a cop out for cleaning companies in my opinion and this cleaning company I talked to just confirmed it. I have seen the same thing all over the country and no matter what the excuse or what was told the customer, this particular cleaning company told the real truth about why the companies are not cleaning these areas. I have said all along that inaccessible areas can not and should not be allowed to exist and that any contractor taking on a job MUST make all areas accessible and put what needs to be done to make all areas accessible in their bid. NO EXCEPTIONS!! The second caller work in the midwest. He said they are a subcontractor of the same national company. He claimed that he often skips pictures on any areas they do not clean or if it is too cold out for him to clean the roof or work outside. When they get calls about the pictures, his boss threatens to stop working for the National Company and since most other companies (Including myself) refuse to work for them or refuse work for them for what they are paying for the jobs. The contractor is forced to just accept whatever job is done with or without all of the proper pictures. That is why subcontracting really has NEVER WORKED in our industry. Everyone takes a cut of the pie. In my opinion, the only way they really make money is the shortcut the job the customer receives. These companies have great marketing programs and may do good work for a few jobs, but they use these few good jobs to get and keep the rest of their accounts. I just got back from a western market and every single job by this same national company was doing was grossly skipped. The horizontals were completely skipped and the stacks from the roof were only cleaned 1/3 of the way down. I attached a couple of pictures from one of the jobs and that was not even the worst one. It took the pictures 8AM October 3rd and the hood sticker is dated that it was done in October, 2008. I confirmed with the manager that it was just done the night. No getting out of that one. There was plenty of access to clean these areas and they are the same skipped areas I saw and took pictures of 2 years ago. One would think that after they were warned about it, they would have been watching closer. Who is looking at their pictures? I think we all know the answer, someone who has no clue about grease ducts!! It takes someone who has done this for a living to recognize proper pictures and where the systems go plus YOU MUST HAVE BASELINE PICTURES TO COMPARE TO!! Well enough of my rantings for today. Everyone, please remember that lives and properties are at stake here and YOU MUST GET THESE SYSTEMS COMPLETELY CLEAN AND KEEP THEM ON SCHEDULE!!! It may be someone close to you that pays the price for your negligence!! Think of that next time you choose to skip a section. How will you explain it to their next of kin?

What impossible looks like when done

2008-09-04T13:47:00.008-05:00

This is some after pictures from a quality cleaning company of the same job the national company could not get clean. This is also the same type of grease that was stated in a letter from another company to be "Almost impossible" to get clean (See: "Excuses from a company for not doing their job right")

How bad can it get? (2 weeks buildup part 2)

2008-08-29T15:35:00.007-05:00

This job in question was just done by a cleaning company. A different company pulled out the grease shown in the pans above 2 weeks after the supposed cleaning. Out of site should not ever be out of mind!!

Keeping watch

2008-08-29T11:38:00.004-05:00

I received this letter from another company who I have personally seen their work. They are one of the few companies that I know do consistantly good work and follow up with inspections. My comment is posted at the end.

"Nice Blog, Where do you find the time to write all of this stuff down. Airplanes? As we all know there are Horror Stories around every 90 degree turn. In fact I was just looking at pictures of a job we have done for 15 years and there is a section of duct that looked horrible. As my supervisor (who took the picture) and the foreman that has been doing the job sat in front of me and tried to wiggle out of responsibility for it all I could do is wonder, What's around the next 90 degree turn. Consequently, the (2) gentlemen will be getting a late start on the long Labor Day Weekend as they labor to remove about 15' of stalagmites off of a piece of grease duct no one knew existed until this very moment. If my note seems to be dripping with sarcasm so be it. We are actually supervising, taking pictures and going back to re-do poor work. I wonder what is happening on some of the other jobs out there." - ****

You are one of the companies on my short list that do consistent good thorough work. Been there, done that with some really pissed off crew persons over the holidays or on their days off in the distant past. Since we are looking at every single job - they always get caught(and terminated after redoing the job). It is getting very infrequent as everyone is aware of how serious I am. The more you look and enforce, the less you will be finding a year from now as you crews realize that you mean business and will hold them responsible. Quality starts at the top and takes diligence and hard work(and good technology now days. Redo's are now on the cleanups as a skipped area will cost them their job and it simply does not happen anymore. Others are on systems that were not on the work order or were on there and they did not read the Work order until the end of the job and had to mark it a WIP(Work in progress). The only way for a crew chief not to lose their job when they did not get the job clean that night is to mark it a WIP. That way, we can go back and finish it right away within a day or so. All jobs are marked either JOB COMPLETE or WIP. There are no other choices. There is also no option for inaccesable ductwork that was not cleaned as the crews are required to install access at ALL jobs where needed and clean the ENTIRE system. We have permissions at the bid level for needed access or we will not do the job. It is in our specification sheet that they are handed plus it is pointed out to the customer what their responsibilities are and that they are automatically authorizing us to install any and all needed access at THEIR EXPENSE if they hire us!! I will NOT have a grease fire or ripped off job on my watch!!! Good job ******** I wish there were more companies like yours out there. -Don

Normal 2 weeks buildup??

2008-08-28T16:14:00.003-05:00

Another day. another ripper:
We just finished cleaning up a job in the Midwest earlier this week that was done the first week in August by a national company that we all know and love(fully tongue in cheek). When confronted about living up to their guarantee for the duct to be free of grease when done, they claim that the grease we found was normal buildup for 2 week!!???. On the 60 foot horizontal, we completely filled up 4- 30 gallon brute buckets with old hard grease scrapings the first night. We filled another 4 barrels the next day before powerwashing the rest of the buildup out of the system. So, lets see, They are saying that 8 x30= 210 gallons (it was several hundred LBS) of grease is 2 weeks worth!! AND it already hardened , burned dark, and was several inches thick in that time??!! Fortunately, the customer and the welder that was there for ductwork repairs knew better! I think the buildup was easily over 10 YEARS WORTH!! I don't think that national company is getting paid for this job they did in August from what I was told. They may also have to pay back for all of the cleanings they supposedly were doing every 3 months previous to this. GOOD!!! Plus, the customer is sending pictures of what we took out to all their other restaurants in the US so they know what is going on!! NICE JOB GUYS!! And we wonder why a lot of the companies in the industry are do distrusted. I will have pictures posted for this next week. For all of you out there that do not think you have to do the job right. Remember- there are a lot of us now watching and we have digital cameras!! RIPPERS BEWARE!!! We(the good companies), the inspectors, the insurance companies, and the customers will find you and hold you accountable for your actions!!! We are here to prevent fires and loss of life and property and WE WILL DO WHAT CAN ON THIS!!
Don

Seminars

2008-08-15T12:47:00.001-05:00

Hi all,
Back from Vacation on in Sturgis and the Tetons! Perfect weather and great riding in the Mountains and the Black Hills. This week, I just got back from Dallas. Boy is it hot down there!! We did a grease exhaust seminar for a large insurance company on proper exhaust system cleanings plus going over proper quality control and documentation for exhaust system cleanings. There were extremely receptive to everything and are looking at trying to implement programs to save their insured some premium dollars if the make themselves a lower risk by using companies with the same quality control programs we are currently using and the ones I proposed to IKECA in the Fall Annual Meeting. They are also on our web site if interested. Most if it involves proper use of digital pictures and following up on each and every job including viewing ALL pictures. If we can all start with proper quality control and reduce the fire risks for the restaurants we clean, we can end up saving everyone a lot of money and possible lives in the long run. When the insurance companies see the actual reduction in risk in numbers, they cannot help but notice. The insurance companies should be able to pass the premium savings on to their insured customers. You may have to charge a little more up front to do the jobs right compared to what you have been charging, but it should save everyone a lot more money in the long run on insurance premiums, maintenance costs on fans, reduced damages, etc. !! The old saying, pay me a little more now or pay everyone else a lot more later. Many of our customers actually pay less per cleaning or per year under the high quality program(compared to what they were paying others to partially clean systems) as these systems are a lot easier to clean when done complete and down to bare metal each and every time!! And they stay cleaner longer!! What a win-win situation for all!! Have fun all and keep on grease'n!
Don

Another letter from unscrupulous cleaning company

2008-08-15T12:36:00.001-05:00

This letter is from the same person as a previous post(see Excuses.....) on why they could not get the systems cleaned. Some of the pictures this person is referring were actually from the "Hidden" areas and all of those sections are now clean. Some others were from looking down from the roof like they state. This system was done by an east coast IKECA member who has removed all of this "Old" grease that this company stated could not be removed. The entire system is now cleaned down to the bare metal. As requested by several persons, I will start posting pictures for all as I have lots of them (Over 800,000) of restaurant exhaust systems all over the country. As always, I will not name where they are from as we keep all of that information confidential.

From: "**********@******.com" <*************@******.com>
To: ************@********.com
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 12:03:03 PM
Subject: Re: #**** hood clean schedule

******,
Perhaps you are unaware that we were replaced at the ***** ****** location WITHOUT any notification. While discussing this with ****** *******, I was informed that ****** is looking for a company to replace our services. Evidently, there were pictures taken using a snake camera at some locations showing grease build up. I went to great lenghts to try to explain to ****** ******* that these pictures are of areas that are not accesible to be cleaned. We can not even see these areas from the top or the bottom of the hoods much less be able to clean them. ******* is convinced that he can find a company to clean the entire duct system, even in the areas that can not be seen without the use of a snake camera. He sent me pictures from another company to prove this, but the pictures sent were those taken of areas that can bee seen from the roof, not from the areas that are hidden like the ones that were taken from your locations.
We take a lot of pride in providing the best service available and have hundreds of customers that in fact feel this way. Since we can not meet ******* expectations, we will no longer be providing services to your locations.
I appreciate your cooperation in the scheduling of locations in the past and wish you success in finding a company that can provide better service than we were able to.

***** ******
****** ******* ******, ***.

Excuses from a company for not doing the job right!!

2008-07-18T11:22:00.003-05:00

(ABOVE) 3 pictures of what was left in the duct from the company that sent in the letter below. Obviously this was not inaccessible as the new cleaning company was able to get to it to get pictures and to clean it.

How much BS can one company give to a restauranteer? In my opinion, this letter is complete BS!! We received this letter from a company that has just been terminated from grease exhaust cleanings for this account. This is the letter that they sent. You have to read it to believe it!! This explains why many companies refuse to properly clean systems. Instead of simply doing their job, they give various excuses on why they cannot and did not do the job to NFPA96 standards(or any other standards I know of!!) FYI: The new company now cleaning these systems are doing them perfect and down to the metal with full verification pictures. They are able to access all areas. The pictures taken showed long term buildup and not the 2 weeks buildup he was claiming in the letter. Vast areas of the systems we inspected appear to have never been cleaned and what was done was only a few inches and not a few feet. - Don
XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX Inc
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXX, XXXXXX XXXXX

XXXXXXXXX
XXXX XXXXXX
Response to Email dated 7/15/08.

XXXX, I can understand after seeing the photos that there would be concerns about the grease conditions that exist in the duct lines even after cleaning. Cleaning Duct lines that are longer than 10 feet or that have horizontal runs or other 90 degree bends are virtually impossible to clean to bare metal unless they have been cleaned effectively from the beginning of its operation. Since all of your locations are in malls, the ducts are all extremely long and or have 90 degree bends and horizontal runs thus creating a situation where the ducts are nearly impossible to clean entirely from top to bottom.

The company XXXXX was using prior to us was XXXXXXX Services. It was apparent that they seldom went onto the roof to clean the fans and never cleaned the ducts. There were several inches of grease on all of the ducts from top to bottom. I discussed this with XXX XXXXXX, the area supervisor, when we first took over the account I informed him of the following:
Once the grease becomes solid, chemicals and pressure washing alone will not remove the grease to bare metal. Only by first scraping the ductwork with assorted metal scrapers, can the grease be totally removed.
Because the ducts are relatively narrow, they can only be effectively be scraped for about 5 feet. After that distance, you can not get enough angle on the scraper to remove the grease. The scraper is almost parallel to the duct so the scraper slides on the hard grease instead of scraping it off. For areas from 5-9 feet, we use 5-8’ wands with bent tips. If we put the tip right against the duct, it rips most of the solid grease off.
For areas greater than 10 feet, we use a 12’ wand and or a spinner which is lowered down the shaft. This removes new soft grease, but is not effective at removing the hard grease adhered to the duct.
A similar problem is encountered in cleaning the duct from the hood. Because the ducts are narrow and the fusible links are directly in the way it is also impossible to remove the hard grease that is beyond reach. We carefully reach up the duct and scrape visible areas. We also extend the pressure wand up as far as possible, but we can not navigate turns. The fusible link can only be cleaned gently by hand and hot low pressure water. The Maryland Fire Code 11.4.7 states that cleaning chemicals shall not be applied to the fusible links or other detection devices of the automatic extinguisher system. If this system engages, it is up to $1,000.00 to recharge. There is also a possibility of lost sales waiting for and during repair.
On the roof, the fan is always cleaned top and bottom and then the ducts are cleaned as described above. We have had to reschedule jobs where roof access was not granted instead of merely cleaning the system from below.

Another issue that we have encountered at several of your locations is, the mall management will not allow the filters to be cleaned on the property. In these cases, we have to bring an extra truck to transport and clean the filters off the premises.
The problem of grease build up in parts of the ducts at restaurants located in malls is consistent in all types of restaurants in every mall that I have worked at. It seems that they are installed with no consideration of the maintenance of the ducts. Ducts should be built straight up for maximum air draw and for effective cleaning, but due to other stores, and other systems (electrical and plumbing, etc.) being in the way of the straight duct, they are installed with bends and horizontal runs just so they can make them fit. Then years later when these types of grease build up problems arise, they can’t understand why there is a problem. Even if access panels are installed, many times there is no way to physically get to them or the panels are tight up against electrical equipment where any deflected water could result in many hazards. In addition, even if the access panels are accessible, there is usually not enough of them to still prevent areas of grease accumulation because you can still only scrape what you can reach.
In summery, your ducts were not designed from the beginning to be cleaned effectively. Even if they had been cleaned diligently every 2-3 months, which is not the case, there would probably still be areas of build up due to poor design. We have been using all methods and equipment currently available to remove as much grease as possible each cleaning. We tried to create fire break zones at both the top and the bottom of the system so that in the event of a fire flare up, the fire would not spread up into the duct. But if it did there was another area below the fan that would help prevent the fire from spreading to the roof.
I am willing to meet with your maintenance staff, engineers, and supervisors to inspect these systems to try to come up with a solution.
Now, as a response to the photos sent: First, if that picture from XXXXXX XXXXX was in reality two weeks from our cleaning, it must be a result of one of the following because I inspected that system before I left and there was no grease left in that area. Either the staff was cooking without the filters in place, or there is such a great amount of grease going up the duct that at night when the grease cools and becomes thick and heavy, it drops back down the duct onto the fire suppression linkage.
Second, XXXXX at the XXXXXX Mall has a tremendous horizontal run that greatly reduces the draw of the fan and it traps and hold grease near the hoods. We had your maintenance staff install a drain in it from which we attach a shop vac hose to and drain each cleaning. The photo was probably taken using a snake type video cam of an area that is again, currently physically inaccessible.
Third, concerning the picture of the XXXXX or YYYYYY at XXXXXXX mall: If it is fact the YYYYYYY as indicated on the picture itself, the major issue here is that the fan on the roof can not be removed due to improper installation. Therefore the duct work can not be cleaned. This issue was also discussed with XXX, when we first took over the account.
In closing, I realize that no company provides perfect service every time, and we make mistakes on occasion, but we take pride in our work and work to provide a consistent superior level of service. I do not believe that you will find another company that can provide you with better service then we do.
Thank you for your prompt response and I look forward to assisting you any way I can.

XXX XXXXX
XXXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX Inc.
XXX-XXX-XXXX office
XXX-XXX-XXXX cell

Texas Heat

2008-06-26T12:57:00.000-05:00

It's not the heat that gets you in Texas, It's the darn humidity. Just spent the last week in Houston at the SW Food Expo. Diet time again!! If you remember the restaurants looking for good cleaners? Well they found one to do all their jobs for less than half the price of the other bids. We sent them the information and the reply was a simple "We have to re-evaluate and increase all of our bid prices as taking pictures will require a lot of extra time on the job" Hmmmm. [thinking about what they actually meant] Let's translate that statement to "We had no intention of cleaning the entire system and to actually remove all of the grease from the systems will require a lot of extra time we did not bid for" I wonder what all the other jobs they are doing look like? Never mind, I already know. Let's see about the extra time needed to verify the cleanings. It sure does take a lot of time and training to teach someone how to take a picture. Lets see now, point and press the button. Hmm- 1st grade education and about 1 second to actually perform the task. Ok-training done!! How much time extra to take pictures on a job. We figured it might take an additional 5 minutes for a complete set of 14-30 pictures that are needed. The trick is to think a little bit and take the pcitures while you are where they need to be taken right after you cleaned that section!! WOW- They sure need to change all the bids to pay for all that extra time on the job!! They must charge thousands of dollars per hour!! I am sure glad the resto of the world charges far less than that!! Another statement I was told at a trade show about taking pictures from a large National cleaning company executive "So, all of our staff have to be professional photographers now?" Hmmmmm, Translation: "We do not want anyone actually looking at our work. We do not want anyone holding us accountable as we have underbid our jobs to get the work. We had no intention of actually cleaning the complete system(s) to NFPA96 standards as we would loose money on the jobs" ITS OUR JOB TO COMPLETELY CLEAN THE SYSTEMS AND VERIFY THE COMPLETE JOB IS DONE!!! I guess there are still a lot of cleaners out there that just don't get it or don't care. Well, enough for my rant for the week. I had a great show in Texas and it tells me there are still a very large number of restaurants that actually do care about quality and getting the exhaust cleaning job done right. Don't ever let up on doing the job right each and every single time!!
Don

Seminars

2008-06-12T12:03:00.000-05:00

Things are looking up in greaser land!! Several additional jurisdictions in a couple of states have just requested grease exhaust vent system inspection/maintenance/construction seminars for their inspectors this fall. I will be doing at least a half dozen or more from the looks of it. All the greasers better be aware that these inspectors will now know exactly where to look and I will be training them with the new technologies so they will be checking and taking pictures of the horizontals and your cleanings!! The other good news is that we can all get on the same page for setting systems up properly with adequate access, hinges on fans, rooftop containment systems that actually work, proper frequencies, etc. Looks like inspectors are starting to take notice and want things done right!! I will be doing a quality control seminar for all the IKECA members that will be directed at the cleaning crews at the St Louis Fall Technical Seminars this October. I will also be dealing with ethics (don't laugh about greaser ethics, I already did!!) in the seminar. Feel free to send me e-mails on what you would like to see discussed (or post it here) at the seminar and I will look into adding it in. Remember I do have a time frame. We all should be doing this job to save life and property so feel free to post here or contact me if you wish help getting your crews on track or wonder what to do. Remember everyone- training, training, training, pictures pictures, pictures!! AND after all that train 'em some more! (And actually look at your crew's pictures!)

Another day, another tale

2008-06-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

Another job, another failed inspection. I had to send a comment to a cleaning company submitting pictures for inspection that we do all FOUR sides of the duct, not just two sides. I cannot believe they even sent the pictures. Maybe they were hoping I was not looking. Another picture showed sweeps of where the pressure washer took off the top layer of grease in another section of the system but there was still thick grease throughout. I commented back that we required ALL combustable material is to be removed per NFPA96, not just some of it!! WOW!!

Excuses 101

2008-06-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

I received the following from a new company bidding on a cleaning job and followed it up with the customers reply comments. They had to raise the bid price once they realized the job actually had to be clean when done!!
Of course one wonders what part of "Remove all Grease" was not understood. At least they were far better than the previous companies at getting the bid information out!! The previous company would not even describe why the cost was going to be so much or what a normal repeat cost would be.
Nelson said it quite eloquently: "It’s kind of like a dentist who says that he’s getting a lot of the decay now and he’ll be sure to get the rest of it on the next visit. That’s OK for him, he’s never going to get the toothache!"
Here You Go:

"XXXX,
I spoke to Don yesterday and tried to reach you. I am a bit embarrassed to have to have this conversation, but in order to ensure that we meet your needs and quality standards, it is necessary. After my discussion last Friday with Don, and his emphasis on his program and the absolute requirement that all areas be cleaned to bare metal, the first time, I had a follow-up conversation with my Hood & Duct Cleaning Manager, XXXXX, to ensure that he understood these requirements.

Given the condition of the two sites we visited, and the excessive grease buildup, XXXX's strategy was to really attack the initial cleaning and then on the subsequent quarterly cleaning, to get it bare metal. He felt there was not enough time in one night to get to bare metal, especially at XXX. Don made it clear on Friday that this approach would not cut it. So, I asked XXXX to devise a plan to get to bare metal on the initial cleaning. He came back with the requirement to come in two evenings in a row in order to achieve this. This has obvious implications on manpower and cost.

To achieve this goal, the costs are reflected below. We want to work with you on this to ensure that the job gets done to Don and your standards. The costs that changed are the initial cleanings, reflecting the increased work to achieve the desired result. The regular quarterly cleanings have had no change in cost. Please let me know what we need to do here to meet your needs?

Cost Summary
XXXX
· I will forward the new proposal (including the language that all areas will be cleaned not just accessible areas) once I hear back from you. My office number is XXXXX or cell is XXXXX. I am in meetings much of the day but will break out when you call.

Regards,

XXXXX

and the reply to their letter from the customer:

Hello XXXX,
Wow! I can certainly understand why you’re embarrassed. Is it standard practice for XXXXXXX to not clean exhaust down to bare metal? Just makes me worry about what would’ve happened if we hadn’t had Don’s inspection program involved. I had to work very hard to try to push this through at the old cost as the budget is very tight right now, but with this added extra expense I don’t know if they’ll accept it or not. Is there anything you can do with this price? Maybe through in the access panel installations for free to make up for your embarrassment? Let me know please. In the mean time I’ll try to justify to my superiors why the cost has gone up. Thanks.

XXXX

Welcome to Grease Inspections 101

2008-06-09T11:46:00.000-05:00

Hi to all those in grease land!! Welcome to my blog and my (sometimes feeble) attempts to change the world of grease duct cleanings! My motto is to do what I do then and only then you can do what I say!! My hope in the long run is to change the way people look at grease exhaust cleaning and to start holding everyone accountable for making sure the jobs are done complete and right! This also means making sure everyone has proper job followup and quality control in place. With technologies available today, there is no reason for all the shortcutted jobs I am finding out there. The complete system means ALL of the ductwork and this excuse of skipping areas due to "Inaccesibe areas exist" is complete horse manure in my opinion!! We have one of the most inportant jobs out there preventing loss of life and property. The lives we save one day may be your daughter, sister, brother, son, neice, aunt, best friend, etc!! Remember that before leaving a job with grease still in the system!! Feel free to reply away to my various ranting and stories. I have almost 35 years worth myself with many more from my friends around the world.
DON PFLEIDERER