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Extraction cleaning - care and nursing homes
A care home kitchen cooks over open flame three times a day, every day of the year - so its extraction canopy, filters and fan load with grease steadily, with no closed days to catch up. That grease is a fire risk in a building where residents cannot easily evacuate, so letting the interval drift is not an option. How often should a care home's extract be cleaned? By its grease loading, not a generic date - and kept on a schedule with the evidence to prove it. Here is how to set the right interval. This is general commentary.
The short answer
How often a care home kitchen extract needs cleaning is a grease-driven question, and the answer follows the cooking. Why the grease loads steadily. A care home kitchen never closes - it cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner over open flame every day of the year, because the residents depend on it. So the extraction is capturing grease-laden air constantly: the canopy, the baffle filters, the plenum behind them and the fan all load with grease steadily and continuously, with none of the quiet or closed days a restaurant gets to let the system catch up. The grease is not just a performance issue - it is fuel, sitting over a live flame. Why the interval cannot drift here. A greased-up extract is a fire risk in any kitchen, but a care home raises the stakes as high as they go: the building is occupied around the clock by frail, elderly and often bed-bound residents, for whom evacuation is slow, staff-intensive and sometimes barely possible. A kitchen fire that ignites the grease and is drawn into a greased duct is the emergency the home's fire precautions exist to prevent. So letting the extraction interval drift is not an option in a care home. Setting the interval by grease, not a date. There is no single correct frequency, because the right answer depends on the system's grease loading. The recognised approach - TR19 Grease - sets the cleaning interval by daily cooking hours and the measured grease deposit rather than a generic calendar date, so a heavily-used, constant care home kitchen generally needs cleaning more often than a lightly-used one. The sensible way to set it is to assess the actual grease deposit and the cooking volume, set a next-due date to suit, and keep the extract on that schedule so it never carries an unmanaged fire load. We measure your grease loading and set the interval accordingly, rather than applying a generic number. Doing it around the service. Because the kitchen cannot close, we clean the whole system - filters, canopy, plenum and fan - around the meal service, so the residents keep being fed. Our engineers are DBS-checked and infection-control aware (annually vaccinated for flu and COVID, carrying disposable gloves and face masks), so they work cleanly and considerately around the home, and we leave the certificate, grease-depth readings and before-and-after photographs the home needs for its fire file and CQC evidence. So how often a care home extract needs cleaning is: on an interval set by its grease loading - usually shorter than most because it never stops - kept to a schedule with the evidence to prove it. This is general commentary on extraction-cleaning frequency in care settings.
Key points
Why the grease loads steadily
The reason a care home extract needs frequent cleaning is that the cookline behind it never stops. Breakfast, lunch and dinner go out over open flame every day of the year, because the residents depend on the kitchen. So the extraction is capturing grease-laden air constantly - the canopy, the baffle filters, the plenum behind them and the fan all loading with grease steadily and continuously, with none of the closed days a restaurant gets to let the system catch up.
That steady loading is why a care home extract carries grease faster than the modest scale of the kitchen might suggest - it is the relentlessness, not the size, that does it. And the grease is not only a performance problem (a greased fan pulls less, and the kitchen turns hot and smoky); it is fuel, accumulating over a live flame. So a constant, year-round cookline never lets up, which is why the grease loads steadily. This is general commentary.
Why the interval cannot drift
A greased-up extract is a fire risk in any kitchen, but a care home raises the stakes as high as they go. The building is occupied around the clock by frail, elderly and often bed-bound residents, for whom evacuation is slow, staff-intensive and in some cases barely possible. A kitchen fire that ignites the grease and is drawn into a greased duct - spreading through the structure fast and unseen - is precisely the emergency the home's fire precautions exist to prevent, and the one with the most serious consequences.
So letting the extraction interval drift is not an option in a care home. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 the responsible person must manage that risk, and the CQC, judging whether the service is safe and well-led, expects the fire safety to be evidenced. Keeping the extract on a proper cleaning interval, with a certificate to show it, is part of both - and part of the duty of care to residents who could not get themselves out. So a fire load over residents who cannot evacuate is why the interval cannot drift. This is general commentary.
Setting the interval
There is no single correct cleaning frequency for a care home extract, because the right answer depends on the system's grease loading. The recognised approach - TR19 Grease - sets the interval by daily cooking hours and the measured grease deposit rather than a generic calendar date. A heavily-used care home kitchen, cooking constantly over open flame, generally needs cleaning more often than a lightly-used one, and forcing both to the same date would leave one over-serviced and the other carrying a fire load.
The sensible way is to assess the actual grease deposit and the cooking volume, set a next-due date to suit, and keep the extract on that schedule so it never carries an unmanaged fire load. We measure your grease loading and set the interval accordingly - usually shorter than most, because a care home kitchen never stops - rather than applying a generic number. So the interval is set by grease loading and cooking hours, not a date. This is general commentary.
Doing it around the service
A care home kitchen cannot close for the extraction to be cleaned, so the work fits around the meal service. We clean the whole system - stripping and soaking the filters, scraping them and the accessible duct back, and degreasing the plenum and fan - working overnight, between services or across a planned window so the residents keep being fed. Cleaning the whole system matters: grease on the fan is usually what has actually weakened the airflow, so filters alone rarely fix a hot, smoky care home kitchen.
Our engineers are DBS-checked and infection-control aware - annually vaccinated for flu and COVID, carrying disposable gloves and face masks - so they work cleanly and considerately around the home while they do it, in step with its infection-control policy. So cleaning the whole system without stopping the meals is how it is done in a care home. This is general commentary.
The evidence
Setting the right interval only counts if you can show the extract is being cleaned to it, so the clean ends with the evidence. The home receives a dated certificate to the TR19 Grease standard, the grease-depth readings taken before and after, and before-and-after photographs - the record it needs for its fire risk assessment and fire file, and as part of the safety and well-led evidence the CQC expects.
For a home, or a group operating several homes, that evidence needs to be in order per site, on a reliable schedule, with a next-due date that keeps every extract on its interval. That is what a contractor who understands care homes provides - the clean, the certificate and the schedule that let the home prove its extraction is managed and its fire risk controlled. So a certificate and readings for fire and CQC is what closes the loop. This is general commentary.
Questions
On an interval set by its grease loading rather than a generic date - and usually more often than most, because a care home kitchen cooks constantly. The recognised approach (TR19 Grease) sets the cleaning interval by daily cooking hours and the measured grease deposit, so a heavily-used, year-round care home kitchen generally needs cleaning more frequently than a lightly-used one. We measure the actual grease loading, set a next-due date to suit, and keep the extract on that schedule so it never carries an unmanaged fire load. So it should be cleaned on a grease-driven interval, usually shorter than most. This is general commentary.
Because the kitchen never closes. A care home cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner over open flame every day of the year, so the extraction captures grease-laden air constantly - the canopy, filters, plenum and fan all loading steadily, with none of the closed days a restaurant gets to catch up. It is the relentlessness rather than the scale that does it: a modest care home kitchen that never stops can build grease faster than a larger one that closes. So it loads fast because the cooking is constant and year-round. This is general commentary.
Yes - a greased-up extract is a fire risk in any kitchen because the grease is fuel over a live flame, and a care home raises the stakes as high as they go. The building is occupied around the clock by frail, elderly and often bed-bound residents for whom evacuation is slow and difficult, so a kitchen fire drawn into a greased duct is the emergency with the most serious consequences. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 the responsible person must manage that risk, and the CQC expects the fire safety to be evidenced. So yes - and it is why the interval cannot be allowed to drift. This is general commentary.
The whole system - filters, canopy, plenum, fan housing and impeller, and the accessible duct. Grease on the fan is usually what has actually weakened the airflow, so filters alone rarely fix a hot, smoky kitchen - and it is the fan and duct grease that carries the fire risk. Cleaning the whole extract is what restores the airflow and removes the fire load, and it is what the certificate and grease-depth readings then evidence. So we clean the whole system, not just the filters. This is general commentary.
Yes - a care home kitchen cannot simply shut, so we clean the whole system around the meal service, working overnight, between services or across a planned window so the residents keep being fed. Our DBS-checked, infection-control-aware engineers (annually vaccinated, carrying gloves and masks) do it cleanly and considerately around the home, in step with its infection-control policy. So the extract is cleaned without the meals being missed. So yes - we work around the service. This is general commentary.
A dated certificate to the TR19 Grease standard, the grease-depth readings taken before and after, and before-and-after photographs - the record the home needs for its fire risk assessment and fire file, and as part of the safety and well-led evidence the CQC expects. A home or a group operating several sites needs that evidence in order per home, on a reliable schedule, with a next-due date that keeps every extract on its interval. So you get the certificate, readings and photographs for both fire and CQC. This is general commentary.
A care home extract runs three meals a day all year, so grease loads it steadily - a fire risk where residents cannot easily evacuate. We measure the grease, set the right interval, and clean the whole system around the meals with DBS-checked, infection-control-aware engineers, leaving the certificate and readings for your fire file and CQC. Ask us to set your care home's extraction schedule. This is general commentary on extraction-cleaning frequency in care settings.
