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Extraction cleaning - certificates
A certificate is only worth what stands behind it. Anyone can print the letters TR19 on a sheet of paper - so if a clean has to satisfy an insurer or a fire risk assessor, it is worth knowing how to tell a real certificate from a claim.
The short answer
A genuine TR19 Grease clean can be verified in a few ways: the contractor should be on the BESCA-run Vent Hygiene Register, their completed work should generate a BESCA certificate you can check rather than take on trust, their technicians should hold the relevant grease hygiene qualification, and the certificate should record before-and-after grease readings and photographs. A bare certificate with none of this is a claim, not proof.
Why it matters
The point of a TR19 Grease certificate is to satisfy someone else - an insurer checking a policy condition, a fire risk assessor confirming a risk is controlled, an incoming operator at handover. All of them are relying on the certificate being real. If it turns out to be a printed claim with nothing behind it, it fails at exactly the moment it was supposed to protect you, typically after a fire when a loss adjuster looks closely.
So verifying a certificate is not bureaucratic caution - it is making sure the evidence you are relying on will actually hold. The time to check is when you commission the work and receive the paperwork, not when a claim is being contested.
Check one
The strongest single check is whether the contractor is registered under the recognised scheme. A genuinely TR19-registered contractor is a company on the BESCA-run Vent Hygiene Register, and each clean they complete is registered on the BESCA portal, which generates a certificate you can verify rather than one you simply have to believe.
That registration is what turns a certificate from a self-issued document into one backed by an independent scheme. You can check a contractor's membership of the register before you hire them, which is the simplest way to avoid a certificate that means nothing - by making sure the firm issuing it is entitled to.
Check two
Behind the company sits the people who did the work. A credible contractor's technicians hold the recognised grease hygiene qualification for the job, which shows they are trained to clean and, importantly, to measure a kitchen extract system to the standard rather than just wipe what they can reach.
It is a fair thing to ask about, and a genuine firm will answer it readily. Cleaning to TR19 Grease is a measured discipline, not a general clean, so the qualifications of the people doing it are part of what makes the resulting certificate credible.
Check three
A genuine certificate records the work, not just the fact of a visit. It should include pre-clean and post-clean grease-deposit measurements, photographic evidence of the sections cleaned, a schedule of what was done, and honest notes on anything that could not be reached. Those are the marks of a real verification report, and they are hard to fake because they are specific to your system.
A certificate that simply states the work passed, with no measurements, no photographs and no detail, is the weakest kind. It may be genuine, but it evidences almost nothing - and it is exactly the kind of thin document that a fake would also produce. The substance is the proof.
Red flags
A few things should prompt closer inspection. A contractor who cannot show membership of the register or examples of proper verification reports. A firm that claims to clean to TR19 standards but cannot produce certification to back it. A certificate with no readings, no photographs and no access notes. And any reluctance to answer straightforward questions about qualifications, the standard, or how the system was measured.
None of these on its own proves a certificate is false, but together they are the profile of a clean that will not stand up when it is tested. The safe response is to insist on the verifiable version - a registered contractor, a portal-generated certificate, qualified technicians and a report with real readings - so the paperwork you hold is the paperwork that protects you.
Questions
Check that the contractor is on the BESCA Vent Hygiene Register, that their completed work generates a verifiable BESCA certificate, that their technicians hold the recognised grease hygiene qualification, and that the certificate records before-and-after readings and photographs.
A BESCA-run register of contractors for kitchen extract hygiene. A registered contractor's cleans are logged on the BESCA portal, which generates certificates you can verify rather than take on trust.
Yes. You can check a contractor's membership of the register before you hire them, which is the simplest way to avoid a certificate that means nothing.
Pre-clean and post-clean grease-deposit measurements, photographs of the sections cleaned, a schedule of the work, and honest notes on anything inaccessible - not just a statement that the work passed.
A contractor who cannot show register membership or proper verification reports, a certificate with no readings or photographs, and reluctance to answer questions about qualifications, the standard or how the system was measured.
Because the certificate exists to satisfy an insurer or fire risk assessor. If it turns out to be a claim with nothing behind it, it fails exactly when you need it - typically after a fire, when it is examined closely.
We clean to TR19 Grease and issue verifiable, measured certificates - so what you hold is proof, not a claim.
