Medway · Canopy and hood cleaning
Chatham canopy cleaning
Canopy cleaning across Chatham and nearby, booked around your opening hours and finished with a written report and pictures.
- A canopy flagged at an environmental health inspection
- Smoke hanging around the canopy during service
- Greasy streaks across the canopy
About our canopy cleaning in Chatham
A kitchen team can wipe the outside of a canopy, but the seams, gutters and inner skin need more. Thick deposits are scraped off by hand, then the surfaces degreased to suit what’s there, using hot water or steam where it helps. The work covers island canopies, plenum chambers and wall canopies, and the jobs we see most are smoke hanging around the canopy during service and canopy gutters full of old fat.
A place as big as Chatham has kitchens of every kind, from takeaways and restaurants to school, hotel and staff kitchens. BESA’s minimum intervals run from every three months for heavy use to once a year for light use, so the right schedule depends on the kitchen.
Nothing is signed off by word of mouth: a written report, dated and illustrated with photos, and for TR19® Grease cleans, a certificate issued through the BESCA VHE portal. It shows what was done and what, if anything, couldn’t be reached.
In-house cleaning or a specialist?
In-house cleaning and specialist cleaning do different jobs. A daily filter wipe and a weekly filter wash keep grease down at the front of the system, but grease that has passed the filters is out of reach. Reaching it takes a specialist with the right equipment.
Keep a record of what your team does. A dated log of in-house cleaning and checks helps show that the system is managed between specialist visits, alongside our reports.
How the visit works
A visit follows the same order every time: protect the area, isolate whatever needs isolating, carry out the canopy cleaning, tidy up and hand over the paperwork. The visit itself takes a few hours for most canopies. Some sites in Chatham need contractors inducted or booked in ahead, so tell us the routine when you ask for a quote.
- Diagnosis first: we look behind the filters as well as at the hood.
- We protect everything below once it has cooled.
- Thick grease is scraped away before the canopy is degreased.
- We finish the plenum, troughs and canopy and check them over.
- The canopy is signed off with before and after pictures and a next clean date.
Getting ready for the visit
- Name a contact who can let us in at the agreed time
- Clear loose items from the work area
- Agree a time when the area can be out of use
Get a fixed quote
Quoting starts with a diagnosis, from your pictures and details or, where that isn’t enough, a survey on site. After that, you get a fixed price for the work, before we start.
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When to call us in Chatham
Grease does not build up any differently in Chatham: it comes down to how long the kitchen cooks and what’s on the menu. High-heat cooking coats it fastest.
Signs it’s time to call us include:
- A canopy that no longer draws the smoke away
- Filters that never seem to stay clean
- Wet, greasy drips from the hood
- Heavy deposits behind the grease filters
For schools such as Wayfield Primary School, kitchen extract cleaning is typically booked for the holidays, when the canteen is closed.
What to look for in a quote
- What’s included in the scope, part by part
- How areas they cannot reach will be recorded
- How VAT is shown on the quote
- Which accreditations they hold, and whether you can check them
More services for Chatham
Different parts, different methods
Pub and hotel kitchens
Pub and hotel kitchens can cook from breakfast to late evening. That is a lot of grease on the canopy, and canopy cleans between full cleans can help.
Wall canopies
Long wall canopies often have several filter banks. We work along the canopy section by section, with pictures for each.
Kitchen extracts in Chatham
The FSA’s food hygiene register shows about 23 restaurants, cafés and works canteens and about 37 sandwich bars and takeaways in and around Chatham, up to about a mile and a half out. Every kitchen among them that cooks under a canopy has a hood, plenum and filters collecting grease. The fire and rescue service for Chatham is Kent Fire and Rescue Service. Fire and rescue authorities enforce the Fire Safety Order in most non-domestic premises, and in a kitchen that fire risk includes the grease in the extract. Food hygiene inspections in Chatham are the job of Medway council’s environmental health team. Extraction counts as kitchen equipment, so its condition can come up on the day. A TR19® certificate and photo report after each clean gives you a record to show an inspector.
Where a hall near Christ the King, or anywhere in Chatham, hosts lunch clubs or events, its extract gathers grease just as a café’s does. Healthcare kitchens, like those at hospitals such as Medway Maritime Hospital (about 1.7 miles north), often cook for long hours, which puts them in BESA’s heavier-use bands.
Chatham is about 29 miles east of London, in Medway. Whether your site is in the middle of Chatham or further out, we cover canopy cleaning for every kind of premises, from a single unit to a large public building. Our area takes in 68 places across Medway, large and small. Our Maidstone page covers sites nearby, about 6 miles away.
We work across the ME5, ME4, ME7 and ME1 postcode area for canopy cleaning and the streets around it. If you need canopy cleaning at premises on Luton High Street, Market Place and High Street or anywhere close by, our technicians can take on the work. You will find Chatham on the A2 and A229, which makes it straightforward for our technicians to reach for out-of-hours visits. We also cover the places around Chatham: Luton (1 mile north), Hale (1 mile north-east), Darland (1 mile east), Capstone (1 mile east) and Walderslade (1 mile south). Further out, we also cover Rochester (3 miles north-west), Rainham (3 miles east), Strood (3 miles north-west), Park Wood (3 miles east), Twydall (3 miles north-east) and Hoo St Werburgh (5 miles north). Being one of Medway’s larger places, Chatham has commercial sites of every size, all within our area for canopy cleaning.
What’s near Chatham
Typical jobs here are in premises near The Huntsman pub, Walderslade Girls' School and Darland Banks and the streets around them. For rail, the closest station is Chatham station, roughly 1.7 miles north. Other landmarks nearby include Six Poor Travellers House (2.5 miles north-west) and Rochester Castle (2.6 miles north-west). For a walk, there’s Blue Bell Hill and Burham Down.
What affects the quote in Chatham
Before we fix a price, we need to know a few things. We look at:
- Site requirements such as sign-in and permits
- The condition we find in the survey
- How big the system is
- A single visit or a regular plan
What you pay depends on how big the system is, what state it’s in and how easy it is to reach. You get a fixed price before any work starts, so there are no surprises.
What we need to know
When you contact us, it’s useful to have:
- Where the plant sits or the system leaves the building, such as a roof or outside wall
- Photos showing the whole system and its surroundings
- Problems your staff have spotted
- Your opening hours and when the area is out of use
Getting a quote does not take long. Send a few details and photos, and we typically reply with a fixed quote within one working day. Where a survey is needed, we arrange a time that suits the site.
Why it’s worth doing now in Chatham
Grease on the canopy is sitting just above the heat source. A flare-up can catch it and be drawn into the plenum and duct, where a fire is much harder to stop. Cleaning it removes that fuel. For a site in Chatham with several systems, a planned schedule stops everything falling due at once.
Combining work into one visit or one programme often makes better use of the time. Mention every system or site you need covered and we’ll price it together.
Why us?
- One contact for all your sites in London and the South East
- A written report with photos after every visit
- We diagnose before we treat
- CHAS, SafeContractor and ISO 9001
Questions from Chatham
Which fire and rescue service is responsible for Chatham?
It’s Kent Fire and Rescue Service, which covers Chatham. TR19® is not law, but it’s the benchmark many fire officers and insurers look to when they ask how often the extract is cleaned.
Can you clean school kitchen extracts in Chatham during the holidays?
Yes, and it’s the easiest time to do it. Food Standards Agency records list about 22 schools, colleges and universities with registered kitchens within about a mile and a half of Chatham. Booking early in the term gives the best choice of holiday dates.
What happens to the filters during the clean?
We take them out, clean them and put them back. We also offer a filter exchange service for between cleans.
Do you provide photos of the cleaned canopy?
A photo report, with before and after pictures of the canopy and plenum. The report includes a recommended next clean date.
Where does the waste go?
It’s contained and taken away. Grease, debris and waste water are collected as the work goes on rather than letting it spread.
Are you fully insured?
Yes, we’re fully insured. CHAS and SafeContractor accreditation sit alongside it for clients who vet their contractors.
Do you cover Chatham?
Yes. Our technicians work in Chatham, within the South East and London area we cover.
What accreditations do you have?
We are a BESCA Vent Hygiene Elite member, cleaning to BESA TR19® Grease. CHAS, SafeContractor and ISO 9001 are in place too, and we carry full insurance.
Multi-site and managed buildings
Managing agents often deal with us directly. Tell us the site, the work and the access arrangements and we will come back with a fixed quote.
When the building owner and the occupier are different, it’s worth checking the lease for who maintains the systems. We can quote either party and send the paperwork to whoever needs it.