Complete
Commercial Kitchen
Exhaust Cleaning

NFPA 96 is the code your inspector enforces

NFPA 96 is the National Fire Protection Association’s standard for ventilation control and fire protection of commercial cooking operations. It covers the whole exhaust system — hood, plenum, filters, ductwork and fan — and it requires that grease-laden surfaces be cleaned to bare metal where accessible, on a schedule set by how hard your kitchen cooks. It is what your fire inspector and your insurer measure you against, and a system that fails it is both a citation and a claim risk.

IKECA defines how that cleaning is actually done

Kitchen Guard is a corporate member of the International Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning Association, the ANSI-accredited standards developer for this trade. Membership is how we stay current as those standards are revised — and it is why our work is measured against a published method rather than a company opinion.

ANSI/IKECA C10-2021 is the method we work to

C10 is the consensus standard for cleaning commercial kitchen exhaust systems. It defines how cleaning frequency and necessity are established through inspection, which cleaning methods are acceptable, and the level of cleanliness required when the work is finished. NFPA 96 says what has to be clean. C10 says how it gets clean.

Trained by IKECA-certified specialists

Our training program is led by instructors who hold the Certified Exhaust Cleaning Specialist (CECS) credential from IKECA — an exam covering system design, fire code, cleaning methodology and inspection. Every technician we send to your kitchen is trained against that standard, by people who have passed it.

Every visit leaves you with dated documentation and photographs you can hand to an inspector or an insurer. Read more about the standards behind this work