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Kitchen extraction - working out yours
The standard gives frequency bands by cooking hours, but the bands are a starting point, not the final answer for your kitchen. Working out how often your extract actually needs cleaning means starting from your cooking volume, then adjusting honestly for what and how you cook, the state of your system, and what the grease actually shows.
The short answer
Working out your extract cleaning frequency starts with your cooking volume - how many hours a day you cook - which places you in the standard's band and gives an indicative interval. Then adjust honestly for your specifics: grease-heavy cooking, a fouling-prone system, or insurance and fire risk requirements can all shorten it. And verify by measurement - if the grease approaches the standard's limit before your scheduled clean, the interval is too long. It is a practical process of place, adjust and verify, not just reading a band off a chart.
Start with your cooking volume
The starting point for working out your extract cleaning frequency is your cooking volume, because that is the main driver of how fast grease - and fire risk - builds in the system. The recognised standard bands kitchens by cooking hours per day, so the first step is to place your kitchen honestly: roughly how many hours a day does it actually cook? A heavy-use kitchen cooking long hours, a moderate one cooking much of the day, and a light one cooking a few hours each fall into a different band with a different indicative interval.
Placing yourself honestly is the crucial part, because the temptation is always to under-rate the kitchen. The relevant measure is the real cooking pattern - the hours the equipment is genuinely in use - not an optimistic impression. A kitchen running busy lunch and dinner services is heavier use than it might feel, and placing it too low means an interval that lets grease build past a safe level. So the first step is an honest assessment of your actual cooking hours, which gives you the band and the indicative starting frequency to work from.
Adjust for what and how you cook
The band gives a starting interval, but your specifics adjust it - and the first is what and how you cook. Cooking type matters as much as hours: heavy frying, grilling and char-cooking throw far more grease into the extract than lighter cooking like boiling or steaming, so two kitchens open the same hours can need different frequencies depending on the grease their cooking produces. A kitchen doing a lot of grease-heavy cooking should shorten its interval relative to the band, because its system fouls faster than the hours alone imply.
The condition and design of your system is the other adjustment. A system with long, awkward ductwork that traps grease, or one already prone to fouling, accumulates grease faster than a simple, well-designed one, so it needs cleaning more often. And external requirements come in here too - your insurance conditions or fire risk assessment may specify or imply a frequency that overrides the baseline. So from the band's starting interval, you adjust for your cooking type, your system's condition, and any insurance or assessment requirements, all of which tend to shorten rather than lengthen it.
Verify by the grease
The place-and-adjust steps give you a working frequency, but the real test of whether it is right is what the grease actually shows - because the standard defines acceptable cleanliness by measurable grease levels, not by the calendar. If, at your chosen interval, the grease in the system is comfortably within the standard's limits, the frequency is working; if the grease is approaching or exceeding the limit before your scheduled clean, the interval is too long and needs shortening, regardless of what band you placed the kitchen in.
This is why measurement matters to setting frequency. Checking the grease level - through the deposit measurement a proper clean includes - tells you whether your interval is genuinely keeping the system within the standard, or whether the build-up is outpacing it. So the frequency should be validated and adjusted against what the system actually accumulates, not just set once from a band and left. The grease reading is the feedback that confirms your worked-out frequency is right for your kitchen, or tells you to tighten it. It is the check that turns an estimate into a verified frequency.
Review as things change
Finally, a worked-out frequency is not set in stone, because the things that determine it can change. If your kitchen gets busier, changes its menu to grease-heavier cooking, or alters its operation, the frequency that was right may no longer be - more cooking or greasier cooking means faster fouling and a need for more frequent cleaning. So the frequency should be reviewed when the kitchen changes significantly, rather than assumed to hold forever from an assessment made under different conditions.
So the full process is: place your kitchen in a band by its honest cooking hours, adjust for your cooking type, system condition and external requirements, verify against the grease the system actually accumulates, and review as the kitchen changes. That is how you turn the standard's bands - which are a starting point - into the right frequency for your specific operation, kept right over time. It is more than reading a figure off a chart; it is a practical process of matching the cleaning to what your kitchen genuinely needs, and keeping it matched as things change.
The takeaway
Working out how often your extract needs cleaning starts with your cooking volume - placing your kitchen honestly in the standard's band by its real cooking hours for an indicative interval. Then you adjust for your specifics: grease-heavy cooking, a fouling-prone system, and insurance or fire risk requirements all tend to shorten it. Then you verify by measurement - if the grease approaches the standard's limit before your scheduled clean, the interval is too long.
And you review as the kitchen changes, because a busier or greasier operation needs cleaning more often than one assessed under lighter conditions. Place, adjust, verify, review: that practical process turns the standard's bands, which are only a starting point, into the right frequency for your specific kitchen, kept right over time. It is how you set a frequency that genuinely matches what your extract needs, rather than reading a band off a chart and hoping it fits.
Questions
Start with your cooking volume - honestly place your kitchen in the standard's band by its real cooking hours for an indicative interval. Then adjust for your cooking type, system condition and insurance or fire risk requirements, verify by the grease the system accumulates, and review as the kitchen changes.
Because cooking volume is the main driver of how fast grease and fire risk build in the system. The standard bands kitchens by cooking hours per day, so your hours place you in a band with an indicative starting interval to work from.
Your cooking type (grease-heavy frying and grilling shorten it), your system's condition (fouling-prone or awkward ductwork shortens it), and external requirements (insurance conditions or a fire risk assessment may set a frequency). These tend to shorten the interval, not lengthen it.
By the grease. The standard defines acceptable cleanliness by measurable grease levels, so if the grease is within the limits at your interval, it is working; if it approaches or exceeds the limit before your scheduled clean, the interval is too long and needs shortening.
Yes - it is not fixed forever. If your kitchen gets busier, changes to grease-heavier cooking, or alters its operation, the frequency that was right may no longer be. Review it when the kitchen changes significantly rather than assuming it holds from an earlier assessment.
No - the bands are a starting point, not the final answer. Placing your kitchen gives an indicative interval, but adjusting for your specifics and verifying against the actual grease is what turns it into the right frequency for your operation. It is a process, not a single figure.
We help you set the right extract cleaning frequency - from your cooking volume, adjusted for your specifics and verified by the grease the system actually accumulates.
