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Extraction cleaning - schools
A school kitchen has an unusual pattern: it cooks hard through term - hundreds of meals in a short daily lunch - then stops entirely for the holidays. That shapes both how much grease the extract takes on and when it can be cleaned. So how often should a school kitchen's extract be cleaned? By its grease loading, like any kitchen - but with the holidays as the natural, convenient window to do it. Here is how to set the right interval around the school year. This is general commentary.
The short answer
How often a school kitchen extract needs cleaning has a grease-based answer, made convenient by the school year. The school kitchen pattern. A school kitchen cooks in a distinctive rhythm: hard through term, feeding hundreds in a short daily lunch, then closed entirely for the holidays. So the extract takes on grease in intense term-time bursts, and then has natural pauses when the kitchen is shut. This matters two ways - it drives how quickly the grease builds (fast, during term), and it provides ready-made windows to clean (the holidays). Setting the interval by grease. As with any kitchen, the right cleaning frequency is set by the system's grease loading, not a generic date. The recognised approach - TR19 Grease - sets the interval by daily cooking hours and the measured grease deposit, so a busy secondary-school kitchen feeding many hundreds through a heavy lunch will need cleaning more often than a small primary-school kitchen doing lighter volumes. The point is to match the interval to the actual cooking, not to apply one number to every school. Using the holiday as the window. The practical convenience is that a school kitchen closes for the holidays, giving a ready-made cleaning window. So many schools anchor the interval to the school year: the summer break is the natural time for the main clean, and busier kitchens that need cleaning more than once a year use the other holidays too. Planning the clean into a holiday means the thorough job gets done with no service to work around and no lunch missed. Keeping it on schedule. The right approach is to assess the kitchen's actual grease loading, set a next-due date that lands in a holiday, and keep the extract on that schedule so it never carries an unmanaged fire load into a new term. Because the grease is fire fuel in a building full of children, keeping the interval right is a fire-safety matter as well as a performance one. A contractor who understands schools measures the grease, sets the interval to the school year, cleans the whole system (filters, canopy, plenum and fan) in the holiday, and sends DBS-checked engineers who can work on a school site, leaving the certificate and readings for the fire file. So how often a school kitchen extract needs cleaning is: on an interval set by its grease loading, anchored to the holidays and kept to a schedule. This is general commentary on extraction-cleaning frequency in schools.
Key points
The school kitchen pattern
A school kitchen cooks in a rhythm unlike most: hard through term, plating hundreds of meals in a short, concentrated daily lunch, then closed entirely for the holidays. So the extract takes on grease in intense term-time bursts, then has natural pauses when the kitchen is shut. It is a distinctive pattern - heavy, short services separated by full closures.
That pattern matters two ways for cleaning. It drives how quickly the grease builds (fast, during term, because the lunch is intense), and it provides ready-made windows to do the cleaning (the holidays, when the kitchen is empty). Both feed into how the interval is set and when the work is done. So hard in term, closed in the holidays, is the school kitchen pattern that shapes the answer. This is general commentary.
Setting the interval by grease
As with any kitchen, the right cleaning frequency for a school extract is set by the system's grease loading, not a generic calendar date. The recognised approach - TR19 Grease - sets the interval by daily cooking hours and the measured grease deposit, so a busy secondary-school kitchen feeding many hundreds through a heavy lunch will need cleaning more often than a small primary-school kitchen doing lighter volumes.
The point is to match the interval to the actual cooking rather than apply one number to every school. A large, hard-frying school kitchen and a small, light one should not be on the same schedule just because both are schools. We measure the grease loading and set the interval to suit it. So grease loading and cooking hours, not a date, is how the interval is set. This is general commentary.
Using the holiday window
The practical convenience of a school is that its kitchen closes for the holidays, giving a ready-made cleaning window that most kitchens do not have. So many schools anchor the interval to the school year: the summer break is the natural time for the main clean, and busier kitchens that need cleaning more than once a year use the other holidays too (half terms, Christmas, Easter) to fit in the extra clean.
Planning the clean into a holiday means the thorough job gets done with no service to work around and no lunch missed, and the kitchen comes back clean and certified for the new term. So the holidays are not just when the kitchen happens to be closed - they are the natural anchor for the cleaning schedule. So the school year gives a natural cleaning slot, which is the holiday window. This is general commentary.
Keeping it on schedule
The right approach is to assess the kitchen's actual grease loading, set a next-due date that lands in a holiday, and keep the extract on that schedule so it never carries an unmanaged fire load into a new term. Anchoring the next-due date to a holiday keeps the interval both grease-appropriate and convenient - the clean happens when the kitchen is closed, on the timing the grease loading requires.
Because the grease is fire fuel in a building full of children, keeping the interval right is a fire-safety matter as well as a performance one - an extract that has drifted overdue is carrying a fire load into a full school. Keeping it on a schedule, anchored to the school year, is how a school avoids that. So a next-due date that lands in a holiday is how the interval is kept on schedule. This is general commentary.
How we do it
A contractor who understands schools puts it together: we measure the kitchen's grease loading, set the cleaning interval to suit its cooking and anchor the next-due date to the school year, clean the whole system (filters, canopy, plenum and fan) in the holiday, and send DBS-checked engineers who can work on a school site. The kitchen comes back clean and fire-safe for the term, and the school gets the certificate, grease-depth readings and photographs for its fire file.
For a school, or a trust running several, that schedule kept per kitchen - each anchored to the holidays and matched to its own grease loading - is what keeps every extract cleaned on time without disrupting term. So measure the grease, set the interval, clean in the holiday is how we do it. This is general commentary.
Questions
On an interval set by its grease loading rather than a generic date - the recognised approach (TR19 Grease) sets it by daily cooking hours and the measured grease deposit. A busy secondary-school kitchen feeding many hundreds will need cleaning more often than a small primary one. The convenience in a school is that the holidays give a ready-made window, so many schools anchor the interval to the school year - the summer break for the main clean, and other holidays for busier kitchens. So it should be cleaned on a grease-driven interval, anchored to the holidays. This is general commentary.
For many school kitchens the summer break is the natural time for the main clean, and if the kitchen's grease loading suits an annual interval, a summer clean works well. But a busier kitchen - a large secondary school with heavy frying - may load enough grease to need cleaning more than once a year, using the other holidays for the extra clean. The right frequency is set by the actual grease loading, so we measure it and confirm whether once a year is right or more is needed. So the summer holiday is often the main slot, with more if the grease requires. This is general commentary.
Because school kitchens vary a lot in how hard they cook - a large secondary kitchen feeding many hundreds through a heavy lunch loads far more grease than a small primary one, so a single fixed date would leave one over-serviced and the other carrying a fire load. The recognised approach sets the interval by the measured grease and cooking hours, matched to the particular kitchen. So we set the interval to each kitchen's real loading, not one date for all. This is general commentary.
Yes - the grease in the extract is fire fuel, and it sits in a building full of children, so an extract that has drifted overdue is carrying an unmanaged fire load into a full school. Keeping the cleaning interval right - anchored to the holidays and matched to the grease loading - keeps that fire load controlled, which is why the frequency is a fire-safety matter as well as a performance one. So yes - the interval matters for fire safety. This is general commentary.
Yes - filters, canopy, plenum, fan housing and impeller, and the accessible duct. It is the fan and duct grease, not just the filters, that carries the fire load and usually the airflow loss, so cleaning the whole system is what actually removes the fuel and restores the pull - and what the certificate and grease-depth readings then evidence. So yes - we clean the whole extract. This is general commentary.
Yes - for a trust or a group of schools, we set a schedule that anchors each kitchen's clean to the holidays and matches its own grease loading, planning the work across the estate into the breaks so every extract is cleaned on time without disrupting term at any school. So yes - we plan the holiday cleans across all your schools. This is general commentary.
A school kitchen cooks hard in term and closes in the holidays, so its extract can be cleaned on a grease-driven interval anchored to the school year. We measure the grease, set the right interval, clean the whole system in the holiday by DBS-checked engineers, and leave the certificate and readings for your fire file. Ask us to set your school's extraction schedule. This is general commentary on extraction-cleaning frequency in schools.
