Explore articles from Facilitec Southwest covering kitchen exhaust cleaning, hood cleaning, NFPA 96 compliance, grease containment, fire safety, inspection readiness, and commercial kitchen maintenance.
Find articles on kitchen exhaust cleaning, NFPA 96, compliance, fire safety, and commercial kitchen maintenance.
OPERATIONS & EQUIPMENT · COMPONENT REFERENCE The filter above your cookline is the first line of defense in your kitchen exhaust system — but which type you have determines what maintenance it needs, how much grease it catches, and how much your exhaust ductwork loads between NFPA 96 service intervals.
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS · HEALTHCARE VERTICAL Hospital foodservice operations run at a scale, cadence, and complexity that changes the NFPA 96 compliance equation. Multiple kitchens, contracted vendors, 24-hour patient meal service, Joint Commission oversight, and the highest fire-risk category under Table 12.4 combine into a compliance environment that differs meaningfully
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS · FIRE DATA The economic case for NFPA 96 compliance doesn’t rest on assumption. Decades of NFPA-published structure fire data show consistent patterns in when, where, why, and how commercial kitchen fires happen. Understanding the patterns helps operators, insurance underwriters, and corporate compliance leads make cleaning cadence
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS · FOR RESTAURANT GROUPS & CORPORATE COMPLIANCE LEADS Managing NFPA 96 compliance across one kitchen is straightforward. Managing it across 20 kitchens in five states is a different job — one that catches corporate compliance leads at insurance renewal, at claim response, and at fire marshal reinspection.
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS Most operators use “hood inspection” and “hood cleaning” interchangeably. NFPA 96 doesn’t. The 2024 Edition treats them as two separate requirements — one sets the schedule, the other is triggered by what the schedule uncovers. Understanding the difference is the difference between paying for the service you
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS · REGIONAL REFERENCE NFPA 96 is a national standard, but nobody enforces it nationally. Each state adopts NFPA 96 through its own fire code, and every local fire marshal enforces the standard as adopted in their jurisdiction. For restaurant groups running kitchens across multiple Southwest states, understanding
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS Access panels are the most under-discussed compliance failure in commercial kitchen exhaust cleaning. A vendor can technically clean “everything accessible” and still leave the operator with a system that fails fire marshal inspection — because NFPA 96 requires the operator to make the entire exhaust system accessible
COMPLIANCE & REGULATIONS · FIRE PREVENTION A commercial kitchen fire almost never begins the way most operators picture it. It starts small, hides in a place nobody can see, and travels through the exhaust system before anyone in the kitchen knows the flames have moved past the cookline. Here’s how
OPERATIONS & EQUIPMENT Everything a restaurant owner, facility manager, or corporate compliance lead needs to know about commercial kitchen exhaust hood cleaning under NFPA 96 — what the standard actually requires, what a compliant cleaning includes, what it costs in 2026, and how to choose a certified vendor. August 6,
OPERATIONS & EQUIPMENT A pollution control unit is the piece of exhaust equipment that removes smoke, grease vapor, and odor from a commercial kitchen’s discharge before it exits the building. If the kitchen sits under residential floors or inside a mall, the PCU is often what makes the operation legal
OPERATIONS & EQUIPMENT A rooftop exhaust fan that stops working shuts the kitchen down. Whether to repair or replace it depends on which component failed, how old the fan is, what the parts and downtime cost, and whether the unit meets current NFPA 96 requirements. Here’s the plain-language decision framework.
OPERATIONS & EQUIPMENT Fifteen years ago, a rooftop grease containment system was a nice-to-have. Today, it’s a lease requirement, an insurance underwriting condition, and a fire-code expectation across most of the Southwest. Here’s what these systems are, why they matter, and who’s responsible for keeping them working. July 28, 2026
