Every answer below is the one your fire inspector would give you — sourced from NFPA 96, the Florida Fire Prevention Code, and a lot of nights on restaurant roofs. If your question isn't here, call and ask a human; the phone is answered around the clock.
NFPA 96's frequency table sets four tiers: monthly for solid-fuel cooking (wood, charcoal, mesquite), quarterly for high-volume operations (24-hour kitchens, charbroiling, wok cooking), semi-annually for moderate-volume kitchens, and annually for low-volume operations like churches and seasonal businesses. Your busiest cooking style sets the tier — not your average week.
NFPA 96 is the National Fire Protection Association's Standard for Ventilation Control and Fire Protection of Commercial Cooking Operations. It governs how commercial kitchen hoods, ducts, fans, and filters must be designed, inspected, cleaned, and maintained. It becomes enforceable law wherever a fire code adopts it — which in Florida is statewide.
Staff can and should handle routine upkeep — wiping the canopy exterior and washing baffle filters between services. But NFPA 96 requires the exhaust system itself be inspected and cleaned by properly trained, qualified, and certified persons acceptable to the fire authority. Staff cleaning does not produce the certificate inspectors and insurers ask for.
Effectively yes. Insurers use NFPA 96 compliance as the maintenance benchmark for commercial kitchens. After a fire, the hood-cleaning certificate is the first document the adjuster requests — and claims can be denied under due-diligence clauses when there's no proof of scheduled professional cleaning. Documented compliance can also support lower premiums.
It's NFPA 96's cleanliness standard: grease-contaminated surfaces in the hood, duct, and fan must be cleaned down to bare metal — not just wiped or chemically hazed over. The commonly cited trigger for required cleaning is measurable grease accumulation of about 2,000 microns (roughly 2 mm) on system surfaces.
Three escalating risks: fire-code citations, fines, or closure from your fire marshal; a denied insurance claim if a fire occurs without cleaning records; and the fire itself — cooking equipment is involved in roughly 60% of restaurant fires, and failure to clean is a contributing factor in about one in five. Grease in a duct behaves like a fuse, carrying flame from the cookline through the building.
Semi-annually, under NFPA 96 and NFPA 17A, by a technician authorized for your system type. It's a separate service from exhaust cleaning, but inspectors check both — keeping the two on one compliance calendar is the easiest way to never miss either.
Yes. The Florida Fire Prevention Code — adopted statewide under Florida Administrative Code Chapter 69A-60 — incorporates NFPA 96, making professional kitchen exhaust cleaning a legal requirement for commercial kitchens across the state. Local fire marshals enforce it during inspections, and non-compliance can mean citations, fines, or closure.
Both touch your kitchen, but the exhaust system belongs to the fire side. DBPR licenses restaurants and inspects sanitation; your local fire marshal enforces the Florida Fire Prevention Code, which includes NFPA 96 hood and duct requirements. In Tampa that's Tampa Fire Rescue; in Orlando, the Orlando Fire Department; unincorporated sites fall to county fire rescue.
Yes. NFPA 96 applies to grease-producing commercial cooking whether or not the kitchen has wheels, and Florida fire authorities have tightened mobile-vendor enforcement. Many events, commissaries, and insurers now require a current hood-cleaning certificate before a truck can park and cook.
A compliant service covers the entire grease path: canopy hood and plenum, baffle filters, the full grease duct run through every access panel, and the rooftop exhaust fan — all degreased to bare metal. It ends with before/after photos, a certificate of performance, and a service sticker showing the next due date.
A standard single-hood restaurant system takes about 2–4 hours. Multi-hood kitchens, long duct runs, or first-time restoration cleanings run 4–6 hours or more. VentWash schedules after close — typically overnight — so the work costs you zero service hours.
Three things: a certificate of performance (company, technician, date, systems cleaned, condition found, any deficiencies), timestamped before/after photos of each component, and a service sticker on the hood showing the service date and next due date. That's the package fire marshals, landlords, brand auditors, and insurance carriers look for.
Yes — after-hours and overnight service is our default. Crews arrive after close, protect the cookline, degrease the full system, and are gone before morning prep, leaving the report in your inbox and the updated sticker on the hood.
Tampa Bay and Central Florida: Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Brandon, Lakeland, and Sarasota on the Gulf side; Orlando, Kissimmee, Winter Park, and Sanford in Central Florida — plus the surrounding counties on the same routes. Anything along the I-4 corridor is home territory.
Industry-wide, most single-system cleanings run roughly $400–$1,500 per visit, driven by hood count, duct length, roof access, and grease load. Multi-hood systems with long duct runs commonly land in the $800–$1,500 range, and heavily neglected systems can exceed that because the first cleaning is a restoration. VentWash quotes are free, fast, and exact — no surprises on the invoice.
Because the scope varies. A low quote often means a hood-only wipe-down that skips the duct and fan — leaving you non-compliant with the fire marshal and unprotected with your insurer. Compare quotes on scope: does it include the full duct run, the rooftop fan, access panels, and photo documentation? VentWash quotes the whole system or tells you plainly what's excluded.
Yes. Tell us your hood count, cooking style, and address — by phone or the quote form — and you'll get a firm number, fast. No site-visit fee, no obligation, and after-hours calls are answered too.
The Florida NFPA 96 guide covers the law, frequencies, and enforcement in detail; the cost guide explains what drives hood cleaning prices and how to compare quotes on scope; and every city page names the local fire authority that inspects there.
Free exact quote in minutes. After-hours crews, bare-metal results, and the photo-documented report your fire marshal and insurer want to see.