I don't believe it

kmjt1021

kmjt1021

Member
I talked to a McDonalds owner operator who claims his exhaust cleaner does a full size store (4 hoods) in an hour to an hour and a half. He called me looking for a better price. Huh! He wouldn't give the name of the company. I sure would like to talk to that guy.
It takes me an hour to pull the equipment, deal with the usual mess and put it back, that does not include any exhaust cleaning.
 
I would want to look at the stores and look at the invoice. He could be thinking of Fire Protection Cert. Just another thing to fill your day.

David
 
I have ran into the same thing in my area. Also this guy tends to low ball the price. The reason he can finish in 1 to 1-1/2 hours is he is on cleaning the filters and the inside of the hood. He never goes on the roof or cleans the fans or duct. I really think this idiot does'nt realize he is liable if anything happens.
 
PPWCOV where in the Mid South are you located?
 
Covingtn, TN (40 miles north of Memphis)
sorry, I just updated my profile.
 
Welcome to the board PPWCOV, you've been a member for over a month and now you are starting to post, does that mean you've been doing a lot of reading?

Back to the subject at hand, Most of the "hood only cleaners" in Southern California have seemed to disappear, I think restauranteurs are getting smarter, AHJ's are being more critical and insurance companies more demanding thus driving the sleazeball wanna be companies out of town. It is only a matter of time before they are all gone, I'm patient.
 
Thanks and yes a whole lot of reading

I am afraid that there are still several, several guys around like that. I have one guy that every time I bid against I tell the store owner up front I will probably be higher but that I do the complete job in accordance with NFPA 96 And they don't seem to care. All they want is someone to do the job cheaper. I will go broke before I Do a half a** job. My brother-in- law manages a store and when I gave the owner the bid and explained the process of the job he asked me why I had to go on the roof, the other guy does'nt go on the roof. I really want to take any buisness from this guy I can, but like I said store/ restaurant owner/mgr are only looking to save money. A old sales person told me once there are two things you can't overcome in sales ignorance and/or poverty. How do you deal with this when it comes your way?
 
I agree you can not clean a McDonalds to any current standard in the time he quoted you but I do know of some McDonalds that: Clean there own fans and filters. The cleaning vendor is responsible for the hood and the shaft......usually the equipment is already pulled and the McDoanlds staff replace the equipment. Maybe this is a little similair to what they are getting. I would sit down and go over each step of your service and compare apples to apples. I had to do this about 15 years ago and still have the same stores??
 
I'm not sure what these guys are doing. The owner was vague on the phone. If I had thought about it, I could have handled it so I could at least get to look at them. The reality is I don't have time go look just for sake of looking.
I did my part by explaining what is suppose to be done and why.
 
Rory

Let me get this right-the store cleans the "fans and filter" and you clean the hood and shaft in 1.5 hr with 4 systems. So you don't go on the roof!

David
 
I've got a chain of stores that was really upset that I wanted to clean in the early AM or late PM, they didn't want to pay thier people overtime for early/late work. I asked what time the previous cleaners would do the job and was told between 11am and 1pm...Yes this is a lunch place, the previous company cleaned from the fan down at the peak cooking times???
 
Rory,

They 'clean their own fans...'? You could clean their clock! This is the kind of thing, among a multitude of other serious items, that most of the 'schools' and tutorial materials omit - and here is the reason: when an employee handles chemicals and/or goes to the roof to do any work he/she is no longer classified as a 'food handler' for both the G.L. and workmans compensation. If discovered they can be re-classified as 'maintenance'; 'chemical handler'; or N.O.C. (no other classification). One cannot have dual classifications - the highest is used. Just the work comp rating alone, depending upon the state, can go from $1.70 per $100 of payroll to approx $20 per hundred. Do the math - just one 20K/year employee can result in additional earned premium of $3,660. Multiply that by 10 employees, and then factor in several years re-capture of back earned premium. This does not even speak to the G.L. increase. One store alone could easily be liable for immediate payment in excess of $200,000. Multiply that by number of franchise locations. I don't think I would pursue this, but the danger is real. You could wind up with an account with shuttered locations.

Richard
 
I know of a group of McDonalds (owner operator) who have their maintenance people clean the fans, we would go in every three months to do the ducts and hoods. I don't know why they do it that way. We don't clean them anymore; it didn't pay us to go do half of a job. We tried to work it out so we could get to two of them a night but they didn't want that either, they wanted us in at closing out ASAP.
 
Bryan,

The same premise applies, with one exception - the owner usually excludes himself from work comp, therefore he/she can do the actual work all by himself and not be subject to the risk of an antagonist or disgruntled employee contacting the regulatory body. I don't think too many owners would actually want to do this unsavory task all by themselves, given that the responsibility for proper work then rests with them. These are the main reasons contract work is the only viable option.

One other caveat for the owner - a commercial insurance policy will contain an 'increase in hazards' stipulation. This places the onus directly on the owner to oversee and approve the contract work. This removes much of the burden from the flue cleaner, contrary to the many erroneous posts I have read to the contrary. We are a necessary and vital component of their operation. They must use us. This is the message that should be spread about rather than 'educating' the managers who, in most cases I have encountered, really don't give a rip about grease exhaust servicing. All they care about is the hood sticker to demonstrate they are in compliance.

In respect to your comment that you don't have the time to "go look just for the sake of looking", I agree with you 100 percent. There is so much business out there it would be hard not to stay as busy as you want. Recently I have read posts in which the poster seems to offer, for a price, a portion of large nationwide accounts. That poster must be off his rocker. I wouldn't touch 'em with a 10 ft pole. Give me the small franchisee or 'mom & pop' who pay C.O.D. and are easy to get along with. There is just too much business to put up with the large corp bother.

Richard
 
I understand all of that, but using their own maintenance people to clean the fans would not likely affect the workers comp rating, they are included with the highest rate anyway, as for complying with any requirements that they be serviced by a qualifies exhaust cleaner assumes that someone somewhere is checking for that, and we all know in most places that just does not happen.
 
RJTravel2 said:
Recently I have read posts in which the poster seems to offer, for a price, a portion of large nationwide accounts. That poster must be off his rocker. I wouldn't touch 'em with a 10 ft pole.

Richard
Click to expand...

You might not have been referring to me, but...

What we try to do is share/ or be a "distribution center" for restaurants that want their hoods and ducts cleaned.

If for example if I heard that Commercial Services lost their national account with TA Truckstops because of lousy service, then I spread the word throughout our network to go bid TA Truckstops immediately. I'm not interested in going after National Contracts simply because I can't control the quality nationwide. But if I represent a nationwide network of independent certified hood & duct cleaners, then I have a means to distribute this information quickly and efficiently. Including pricing, locations, names and numbers of contacts.

It's up to each individual person on our network to go after those jobs if they want them.

I think that in all of the discussions going back and forth about organizations such as ourselves, is that the fact that we represent "Certified" hood cleaners. It doesn't really matter to me if you are certified by us, PWNA or IKECA. That means that even David would qualify to join with our network (since he is IKECA certified).

We think that all hood cleaners actually cleaning the hoods should be certified.

*******************************************

Now as far as the restaurant helping with the cleaning to lower their cost it can be done. Although the restaurant cleaning the fan is usually taking that point a little too far.

I think that it is reasonable for the restaurant to clean the filters and the outside of the hood/backwall though. This saves time on the cleaning process and is reflected in the price.

There are always going to be a few who "do it themselves." I ran across an 80 year old (not a hood cleaner) who would go up on the roof of his restaurant, take his fan off, lower it with a rope to his truck and drive it to the carwash and wash it himself. Then he would haul it back and rope it back up to the roof. He had been doing this for years but was getting too old to do it anymore and called one of our members to help him out. His exhaust system was one of the few that I can actually say was cleaned by the owner to a degree that would be acceptable to most hood cleaners.

Rusty
 
Certification means that the holder is qualified to clean a hood exhaust system. To say that this is a means to control quality is simply ridiculous. Quality and customer satisfaction comes from local control and not from a national selling concern.

Anyone that sells anything sells service, quality at a good price. When he sell out of his control he faces quality issues. Do you really think that you can set up a national network that is better than Commercial Services.

The other problem one would have is setting a price. The truckstop wants a national price. You just can't give a national price because each state has a different service work values based on cost of living, workers comp, taxes and so on.

EVEN ME!

David
 
David,

I 100% agree with you for the first time. Pass me a bowl of that soup.

I can't control the quality, which is why our network as individuals goes after each store. Each individual is responsible for his quality. If that individual does not provide the type of service that is demanded from our customers, then they get no more referrals from us.

As far as TA Truck stops they got burned by a national contract and specifically did not want that again. They wanted local vendors which we were able to provide to them in 14 states.

Rusty
 
The 3 Mc Donalds (single owner)I am responsible for do clean their fans on a regular basis. We do clean the entire system. McDonalds Corp inspects these resturants on a regular basis, one of the inspection items is the hood and fan. McDonald's people go on the roof, and hand clean the outside of the fan housing, and sometimes the inside of the housing. The fan blades do not seem to get cleaned. There is another McDonalds Franchisee who has 2 sites. I cleaned one a year ago, the first time in over a year, the other has not been done for 3 years. McD inspectors seem to be very simalar to public inspectors.

By the way, My time to clean McDonalds w/3 ducts (or stacks as McD calls them ), service the Ansul and FX is about 3.5 hours.
I did do one of my McD by myself once. Took about 5 hours and I was not pleased with the job.

Douglas Hicks
General Fire Equipment Co of Eastern Oregon, Inc
 
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Hey I did two of those TA truck stops for years, until they went with Commercial Services. They called back last week, it seems one of Commercial Services problem was covering all area's. The manager here said the company doing theirs had to travel to far and didn't really want any part of it, and their service was poor at best. I only have to go 3 miles. Is that too far?
 
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