Are we in the fire prevention business

Are exhaust cleaners in the fire prevention business?

  • Yes

    Votes: 22 57.9%

  • No

    Votes: 16 42.1%
  • Total voters
    38
Experience is the best tool in this business. Just as a lawyer out of college, I was prepared to walk into the courtroom, but winning the case is another thing. I'm not sure if a lawyer can call up his professor and ask the best way to prepare a case, but I could and did call many times with questons on hood cleaning. You can not ask for any better support than I received.

Now, who's selling tickets for the main event?
 
I posted 2 restaurant grease fires today (on the other board) and both restaurants grease exhaust systems contained the fire and didn't spread and burn down the entire grease exhaust system.

The grease exhaust system is built with the sole purpose of containing the fire.

If the system has been designed, built, installed and inspected and it doesn't control the fire, then how come the lowly hood cleaner is at fault. Seems to me that the grease exhaust system, when built per NFPA 96 and UL 2221 & 1978 standards will control the fire.

The problem comes in that the systems haven't been built, installed or inspected to these standards and have sections that are uncleanable.

In reality, it doesn't matter how dirty the duct work is, if there is a fire, the exhaust fan will draw the fire up into the system and expel the fire and smoke through the fan out into the atmosphere.

I cleaned systems that haven't had the duct work cleaned since it was built back in the 60's.

The problem comes in that hood cleaners are being told that they are in the fire prevention business and they are buying into this.

Because they are buying into this thought pattern they are putting themselves at greater risk of liability if there is a fire.

Our paperwork, which the customer has to sign in order for us to service their system, states plainly that they forfeit their right of subrogation in case of any damage or fire unless it is due the specific action that we did that caused the damage.

Any hood and duct exhaust system that is cleaned, is automatically less likely to support the fire.

But the next day when they start cooking, the grease exhaust system is being coated with layer after layer of grease. I can't control the amount of build up, I can't force the restaurant owner to have it cleaned more often, I can't force the fire marshal to have it cleaned, yet I'm supposed to buy into the notion that it's my fault that the restaurant burnt down.

I don't buy into this logic.

This story has been put forth to get hood cleaners to think that they are more than they are so that a program/certification can be pushed forward and to increase the profitablity of the person propragating this notion.

If you can get the hood cleaner to admit that he is in the fire prevention business, then the attorney has you hands down because you didn't prevent the fire.

The only sure way to prevent the fire is to remove all cooking appliances from below the hood system and cook outside.

As long as there are grease exhuast systems, there will be grease in the system that will burn.

No matter how perfectly Matt cleans the exhaust system, it will burn if there is a fire.

So, we have a situation, that if there is a fire, the grease exhaust system will burn 100% of the time. That's what it's designed for. It's sole purpose and the reason so much time and money is spent on it, is to prevent the rest of the building from burning down.

It's illogical to conclude that the hood cleaner caused the restaurant to burn down, when he is the ONLY person that is truly doing something that might actually make a difference if there is a fire (and the fire suppressant guys too).
 
Now you are trying to take all of the blame away from the exhaust cleaner. Of course if there is grease in a system it will burn, but if there is 4" of grease in a lateral compared to 1/64" it is going to burn that much longer and that much hotter. I have seen dirty systems that have caught fire and ones that have been cleaned properly (I'll see if I can dig up some pictures) and I can tell you that the difference is night and day. pour some alcohol on a counter and see how long it burns then take the same alcohol and pour it in a glass and see how long it burns. Better yet try this with a plastic cup and see if the first one melts the cup as much as the second one. I haven’t tried this but it seems like a good analogy.

The idea is to clean the system before there is enough grease in it to sustain a fire. If you have done your job correctly, any judge in his right mind would be able to see that.

"No matter how perfectly Matt cleans the exhaust system, it will burn if there is a fire."

This is such a generality that I don't even know where to begin. Are you saying that the day after we clean a system perfectly it will burn? a week? Let me know so I can respond with some level of dignity.
 
If there is 4 inches of build up, why?

How did it get there? The cooks? The cooking? The way the system was designed so that previous people couldn't access it?

The hood cleaner is a janitor that specializes in removing grease. If we were more than that we would require State Certification as fire prevention specialists.

Anything that a hood cleaner does, lessens the fuel load, but will NEVER PREVENT the fire.

That was the point of your whole thread, are WE in the fire prevention business.

NO. We can't PREVENT the fire. If there is a fire, it will burn, even if you cleaned it last night, the fire will be sucked up in to the ductwork and vented out through the roof. It's designed, built, installed and inspected to do that.

The only thing you can hope for is that the clearance to combustibles is adequate enough to prevent them from catching fire and that the ductwork isn't leaking grease.

If it's leaking grease, then no matter how well you cleaned it, when the ductwork super-heats, the grease on the outside of the ductwork will spontaneously combust and you have a fire on the outside of the ductwork in the attic.

The hood cleaner IS NOT responsible for the fire, didn't cause it, can't prevent it, but there are those who will try and place blame on us? Why? MONEY?

Someone makes money everytime a hood cleaner buys into the notion that it's their fault (that is unless it truly is there fault... ie.. they didn't even clean the system, but charged for it).

It makes it easier for a lawyer and their team to prove that it's partially your fault if you buy into the notion that it is.

You are being pre-conditioned to accept liability by those who will profit from your lawsuit.
 
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Theres 4" cause the exhaust cleaner wasnt doing his job. If we CLEAN the entire system every time, and the systems are cleaned at the proper intervals, we wont have to worry about getting sued because there is no way a fire is going to burn hot enough to cause damage. The problems occur when the CLEANER doesnt CLEAN everything out of the system every time and the old buildup continues to burn and cause damage, those ducts can only takes so much.

I doubt that this system would be damaged if it caught fire the next day or even the next week:
 
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Since we can't force the restaurants to use your superior service, they are left with what they get around the country.

Since you are not a fan of making sure that those other people can clean hoods in any formal way, then what do you propose?

I have decided, without bothering to ask anyone else what they think, that the best course of action is to personally train and visually verify that a person can actually clean a grease exhaust system from start to finish by themselves following NFPA 96 guidelines.

Then group all of these like minded hood cleaners together and form a hood cleaners association independent of the IKECA and PWNA mindset and focus on what's best for our members. Not what's best for the association's bottom line.

It's time for you to join the (fill in the blank with your fav. association... CHDCA, IKECA or PWNA) and start making a difference around the United States and Canada with your knowledge and experience instead of being trapped in an area where the only people who know how good you are are the few people that read this board occasionally.

Your original point was is the hood cleaner a fire preventer. The answer is ABSOLUTELY NO!

Now, your 2nd point is, are there hood cleaners who don't clean the entire grease exhaust system as well as you do. This is braggadocio on your part.

For some reason you think that someone can't learn in 5 days what you have spent a lifetime learning, that it must be impossible and therefore they can't clean as well as you do.

The people that we train may not have the experience that you have, but they have a very good beginning and succeed after being trained by us.

Time is the only thing that will provide experience for our students and give them long term success.

But the difference is that we don't just train them and send them off to fend for themselves. We provide 24/7 support and a huge network of people that are helping each other succeed instead of bragging how much better they are than everyone else.

You can be the world's best hood cleaner, but if you don't have any business, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

We make sure that our students can not only clean hoods, but also get new clients and grow their business.

So, the above is my solution to how we make sure that the "CLEANER doesnt CLEAN everything" problem and are DOING SOMETHING about it.

What is your proposal to have all the rest of the hood cleaners in North America clean hoods as well as you do?

It doesn't matter how well you clean a grease exhaust system, you can still be sued. The point I'm making is don't buy into the notion that it's partially your fault because you cleaned it.
 
"You join..." was meant not specifically to Matt (although most of the post referenced him)... it was meant in more generic terms to all those hood cleaners who are sitting on the sidelines and not doing anything to push this industry forward.

I've spoken with Matt before and I was aware of his membership.

It's easy to complain about this and that, but complaining without action doesn't mean anything.

I should have clarified my post earlier.
 
Grant said:
We are all in the fire prevention business just by doing what we are doing. Admit it or not if there is a fire and you have done service at that location you will be served.
Click to expand...


The above is a pretty broad statement. To many other variables involed to point the finger at the hood cleaners. Improper electrical feed.(conduit running inside the duct) Improper instalation of filters/NO FILTERS IN PLACE!
Inadequite fire system service (the establishment chose not to service the system properly or at proper intervals)
Impoper gas appliance instalment/antiquated equipment.
Couldnt get the management or owner to agree to a realistic approch to a cleaning schedule.
I know I am not the only one in the field who has experienced the above.
The list goes on and on as to what could go wrong.
So with all that said CYA, Get it all in writing and point out all the inadequcies
of the sytem including antiquated equipment and whatever else you find that is incorrect and have somebody sign it.Someone in a management position.
:p Goat.


"Our paperwork, which the customer has to sign in order for us to service their system, states plainly that they forfeit their right of subrogation in case of any damage or fire unless it is due the specific action that we did that caused the damage." This was taken from Russ's post. The qoute above is what everyone should put into practice.
 
I think one of the points that Rusty is missing is that there are systems out there that have limited acess but can still be cleaned. It takes more time but with the right tools and knowledge, it can be done. That magnetic scraper is a great example of a tool that could help exhaust cleaners get to areas with limited access. The duct spinner is another great tool for this.

There are companies in our industry that simply do not have the tools or knowledge to get systems with limited access clean. Maybe they don't care to clean the entire system, but if there was an easy way to do it they might. This would limit the liabilaty of all exhaust cleaners as we would have less fires spreading in to parts of the exhaust system that can cause damage.

I think what we need to do is really start regulating our own industry, because if we don't, someday it will be regulated by the government and we will all be worse off. It is going in the direction of government regulation, we can chose to abate that or advance our industry on our own. If we don't have an association that does this or even just an agreement amongst ourselves to self regulate, we are in for it.
 
I think the original question was "Are we in the fire prevention business?" I think the clear cut answer is Yes.All the talk about we are just cleaners,not in the fire prevention business is nice,and to think that might help you sleep better at night.It might be true if you were hired to just polish the outside of the hood,but you are hired,and promote your business to remove grease,which is the fuel load in the fire chain in the kitchen exhaust system,which is designed to prevent(hopefully) or contain a fire where grease is the fuel load,which makes you in the fire prevention business .If you ask a chimney cleaner if he is in the fire prevention business,he will tell you yes,he removes the soot and creosote from a chimney system to help"prevent"fires.All the variables mentioned here as far as liability are true,but the KEC is part of the fire prevention chain in a kitchen exhaust system,in my opinion.
Jim
 
If you sell yourself as being in the "fire prevention business" then you are in the fire prevention business.

As for myself, "fire prevention" or "removing fuel load" (all terms coined by someone else who profits by suing hood cleaners) is never mentioned during the sales process, in any advertising, during any conversation with the customer, written in any form in the service agreement or in any other document that the customer might sign. It's not implied or inferred that that is why we are there.

We are hood "cleaners." We "clean" all accessible areas.

If we are in the fire prevention business, then it's time for the state to start regulating us and require yearly certification just like they do for fire suppressant guys.

The state clearly doesn't recognize us as fire prevention.

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that a hood cleaner can do to "prevent" the fire.

Unless I'm standing in the kitchen and have a fire extinguisher in my hands when the flames jump up to put them out, then maybe I prevented the fire.

The point I'm making is this, no matter how well you "remove the fuel", if there is a fire, it will still be directed up the grease exhaust system and vent through the fan. What if it's a month or 2 or 3 after you cleaned? You don't think that that "fuel" will burn?

No matter how much fuel you remove you will NEVER PREVENT the fire.

The true "fire prevention" is in the design, installation, & inspection of the grease exhaust system. If built per codes, it can sustain any fire, with any amount of fuel load and not burn down anything else.

The problem comes in that there are systems that aren't compliant and have obvious faults that will enable the rest of the building to burn down.

If a system is installed improperly and doesn't contain the fire, how come it's the hood cleaner's fault? We didn't design it, install it or inspect it. We just cleaned what was there as best as we can.

Prevent:
1. Keep from happening or arising; have the effect of preventing
2. Prevent from doing something or being in a certain state
 
Maintenance. Cleanliness. Appearance.
 
Rusty as a National Fire Prevention Association 96 Tech Com Member you truly believe that exhaust cleaners are not providing a fire prevention service?
What then is the purpose of exhaust cleaning being mentioned in NFPA 96?
Do all the committee members take the same stance?
 
Surely you jest Rusty. I feel so disillusioned. So used. I can't go back to my former job as afro fluffer for the Jackson 5. Just when I decided hood cleaning was for me, you pulled the rug right out from under my feet, but wait this is what is written on the Rusty So You Wanna Be A Hood Cleaner Website

"By law and insurance regulations, commercial eating establishments are required to clean their kitchen hood and duct systems approximately every 1 to 12 months, depending on their volume of cooking and grease accumulation. The average range is 3-6 months. Isn't it reassuring to know that your customers are required to use your services every 1 to 6 months?

Our main job is preventing fires. This grease fire could have quickly spread to the kitchen exhaust system igniting the entire restaurant."



What a relief, Rusty was only kidding us! We are in the fire prevention business.
 
RustyACE said:
Maintenance. Cleanliness. Appearance.
Click to expand...

Most restaurant managers/owners would not spend a penny to maintain the cleanliness of the exhaust system for the sole purpose of appearance. If it had nothing to do with reducing the risk of a grease fire, we would all be cleaning sidewalks and awnings.
 
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