Inspections

P

Przrat

New member
This is the area that seems the most lacking to me. It should come just after hood system installations and before and after cleanings. Here in the East,there isn't a regulatory body inspecting the hoods. Inspections are mentioned in the fire codes. Who does them? I mean correct inspections. Visual. Removing the filters, removing the fan, and removing at least some of the access panels. I have talked to one Fire Inspector and he asked that we call him when we are cleaning the hood! I know he doesnt want to climb up into the hood, get a ladder and remove the fan. Crawl into the duct. I really cant blame him.
To me, this is the crucial void in our industry. This also is the answer. A state wide group of inspectors. Who is gonna pay them? Good question, ED.
If these inspectors were required to send periodic reports to the Fire Marshalls, and fines were ultimately issued, we would have a respectable business. The shoddy companies would be forced out, because they would also be fined.
Really, those damn codes are more of a problem than a help to us. The specifics we need to enforce a high standard of work are not in the codes. How often should we clean. Nope. Nice and vague.
How often should there be an inspection. Yes Specific times. Sounds like inspections are very important, doesn't it?
But who inspects? Nobody. No money out there. Who will pay. The city, state, nfpa, the owners?
I wonder what the NFPA would do if we started really asking them about the lack of specifics on frequency of cleaning, and why the very specific codes for inspections. I bet their response would be to make the inspections much more vague. They don't have any inspectors out there involved in the codes. Now I mean Grease Exhaust System inspectors. Specifically looking for the continous safety and functionality of the system. Not a fire marshall on fire inspector who has an entire city or state filled with fire issues. How many food service businesses are out there. Of course the new inspectors could not be affiliated with any hood cleaning businesses.
That would mean a lot of inspectors.
Sorry, I think this wall is too big to climb.

HOOD CLEANERS UNITE. LETS WORK ON SETTING UP A SCHOOL FOR CERTIFIED INSPECTORS THAT WILL WORK FOR FREE. I WILL SET UP THE SCHOOL TO CERTIFY THE CERTIFIERS. OF COURSE NO ONE WILL ULTIMATELY BE RESPONSIBLE.
 
Ed, great question....You've had some good threads here lately.

I personally believe that it SHOULD be the fire prevention officers duty and who pays for it is US with out tax money. I've heard about people's customers complaining to the hood cleaner that the fire marshals in their area is more concerned about them having "EXIT" signs or "This sign is to remain unlocked during business hours" signs than they were about checking out the hood system that hasn't been cleaned properly in 10 years. Although those signs are important, I think they should focus on more important things.

While soliciting during the day, I do inspections and yes it takes awhile sometimes to inspect everything, but that is their job, or at least I thought so. I personally don't think that some of them are educated enough to inspect a system correctly or something, or else they would do it more often and I would get more calls like "Hey this is so and so from ABC Restaurant and the Fire Marshal was just here and threatened to shut me down if I didn't have my ENTIRE kitchen exhaust system cleaned, can you help me?" We all would.

You brought up a good topic though Ed, lets see what everybody else has to say.
 
How about if along with showing the sticker or invoice showing that the service was done, the fire inspector also asked for photographic evidence that the work was done?

There were a lot of fire suppression companies out here that were not properly servicing fire extinguishers, just tagging them with a date serviced. So they changed the tags so that you have to actually take the head off the fire extinguishers. Now when the FD comes, they have to see that round tag around the neck of the extinguisher. It still doesn't prove that it was serviced correctly, but how hard is it after you take the head of the fire extinguisher off?

I know a lot of guys disagree with photos saying it would take too long or cost too much, but I have been doing it with my guys for over a year now and it is not that difficult. One of my office girls imports them and makes sure that all of the photos are there, and I do the quality checks. If they are not up to snuff, they go to my lead tech and he takes care of it from there.

There is a guy named Don Pfleiderer from Enviromatic who actually turned me on to this idea. At the time I think he said he was doing over 500 jobs a week and having pictures taken of every job. I asked him if he had some kind of grading process for the pictures, he said "Ya, pass or fail, if there is any grease anywhere it's a fail" I figured if he can do it with 500, I can certainly do the same with 50 so we started and never looked back. Now if a customer ever has concerns I just get their email address and send them the pics.

So it may seem like a big hassle to take pics of every service, but I really think the industry is going in that direction. With the technology available to us today, it is easier than ever.

Take a look at this guys website: http://www.shannonco.com/ He puts photos of every service on his website, and each customer has their own login. So a fire inspector could come in to one of his customers and ask about the cleaning, and all the customer has to do is log on and shod the FD the photos.

I am not saying it is easy, but I think if it is made mandatory, we will figure out a way to get it done, just like we had to figure out how to clean Chinese and laterals, and Chinese laterals.

Matt
 
It sounds good coming from a reputable businessman, but put yourself into the same position being an slimey hood cleaned. That guy would take pictures of the good areas and leave out the bad. You know there would be some kind of con. Keep a set of basic clean pictures and use them for every restaurant. Damn, I am starting to scare myself.
Kinda reminds you of a resume, doesn' it?

I feel it has to be a neutral official doing the inspection and making the report with some mandatory record keeping that is also sent to the Fire Marshall.

Fire suppression companies are supposed to send notification to the Fire Marshalls of restaurants that decline semi annual inspections. Do they all do that? I doubt it.
 
Ed... The Grease Police has a 7 point inspection system setup for the pics. They aren't just random pics of an unknown system. See here. The pics also need to be date stamped. Somebody like Matt that has been looking at these pictures for a long time knows what he's looking at. It would be very hard to pull one over on him. Yes, I'm sure I could fudge around with pictures and I MIGHT be able to fool him once, but would it be worth all the trouble? No system is 100% bullet proof.
 
Who is talking about Matt? Matt dosen't live around here. The pics would apply to who ever they are shown to like the business owner here in my area.
 
What I meant to say was..........don't you show the pictures to the business owner whose hood you just cleaned. You sure as hell don't show them to Matt. A less than reputible cleaner can con a restaurant owner. Especially if the restaurant owner doesn't want to know the truth anyway. The truth may cost him more money. Most would rather live in denial.
Officers that can fine a restaurant could be very motivational. More so than Matt.
 
Its a good idea to have inspectors look in to this, but it is highly unlikely that it is going to happen. Not that they can't be trained to do so, Phil even has an online inspectors course here : Fire Inspector Course

From what it looks like, Phil has made some great progress in the area of educating FD's on our trade, once they start to get more and more trained on what we are doing, they will start to see a greater need to have some kind of hood inspections done.

The pictures would only help them out, just like the tags on Ansul systems and fire extinguishers help them to see that these devices were serviced, the pictures would help to show that the hood was serviced. Only it would prove that it was done correctly.

I have gotten a couple of accounts from restaurants that have had the FD look in to the duct, but they were just coincidences. I think we have a long way to go before they inspect the entire system.

Matt
 
Przrat said:
What I meant to say was..........don't you show the pictures to the business owner whose hood you just cleaned. You sure as hell don't show them to Matt.
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As part of membership in the Grease Police, members are required to show proof of proper cleanings done by them. I think this is what he is talking about. I have looked at enough pictures to know when a guy is trying to fudge.

Matt
 
We are getting off the point here. Valid inspections, which the NFPA has specific guidelines for, are not being done by any officer who has the authority to either fine or shut down the facitities that do not conform.
That is the weak point in our business. The missing link.
Members of various groups policing themselves is nice but their authority is unfortunately smoke and mirrors. They can effect their own members a bit but not the renegades.
Look at it this way. No offence meant but I am not a memebr of grease police
and you do have a very professional logo but as far as I am concerned your actual authority is over your members only.
A real policing authority with nationwide guidelines for state officers is what we need.
 
cgibson said:
As part of membership in the Grease Police, members are required to show proof of proper cleanings done by them. I think this is what he is talking about. I have looked at enough pictures to know when a guy is trying to fudge.

Matt
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yeah, that is what I was trying to say. I was trying to show that we as an organization are trying to get a handle on scumbag hood cleaners that do a horrible job except in the places that the owner/manager can see.

I have my pictures available for the restaurant owner/manager to see if they choose, but I would say that only about 30% want to see them.
 
cgibson said:
As part of membership in the Grease Police, members are required to show proof of proper cleanings done by them. I think this is what he is talking about. I have looked at enough pictures to know when a guy is trying to fudge.

Matt
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How can you be assured the photos are right, or even represent that job?

People, employees cheat all the time.

I know it will help, but you cant say it will completly fix the problem?
 
Przrat said:
We are getting off the point here. Valid inspections, which the NFPA has specific guidelines for, are not being done by any officer who has the authority to either fine or shut down the facitities that do not conform.
That is the weak point in our business. The missing link.
Members of various groups policing themselves is nice but their authority is unfortunately smoke and mirrors. They can effect their own members a bit but not the renegades.
Look at it this way. No offence meant but I am not a memebr of grease police
and you do have a very professional logo but as far as I am concerned your actual authority is over your members only.
A real policing authority with nationwide guidelines for state officers is what we need.
Click to expand...

The whole idea is to "kick it up a notch" as Emeril would say. Of course any organization that is not officially sanctioned by the government has no authority, NFPA included.

But we can try to push the whole industry in a new direction. A perfect example is what has recently happened with the mold remediation industry. Recently 3 states passed laws that would govern this industry. Right now I am only aware of a couple of states that actually do anything to govern ours.

The standards are already in place via NFPA 96, if we can now implement a system that would ensure the standards are being upheld, and not just a certification that says they are going to conform to the standards, but actual physical proof that they are, then it may be adopted, in essence, by whatever government agency that decides to oversee our industry.
 
Ron Musgraves said:
How can you be assured the photos are right, or even represent that job?

People, employees cheat all the time.

I know it will help, but you cant say it will completly fix the problem?
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With the system that we have in place, it would take more work to try to cheat on the photos, then not. The member takes a picture of the invoice, with a time and date stamp, and then takes pictures of the system. The time it would take to photoshop these or in some other way alter it would just not be worth it.

You are right that it will never completely fix the problem, but it will keep the honest people honest. Just like the firewall and passwords you have on your computers, they will never keep out a true criminal that wants to get in.
 
It reminds me of gun laws. The honest people will be continue to be honest and the crooks will not.
 
One problem that we have is the pictures themselves. Pictures taken in New York could be taken for pictures in Montana. Hood and fans do not for the most part can’t be identified-why because they look the same. One way that the hoods could be identified is that each sequence pictures have the name or a number ID on the hood. Those numbers should be located in key areas so that the photo would include the name or number.

Obviously this is a pipe dream and it must start with new construction by code. I know everyone knows there pictures, but when a layman looks they look similar and the difference is slight at best if the hoods are the same manufacture.
 
Thats a good point. It's just like the stickers we put on the hoods, anyone can slap them up and sign it, and now when the Fire Dept comes in they say "Oh look, the guy just had his system cleaned last week, no need to cite him for anything" Little do they know what lurks inside of those ducts.

I just don't know if the FD's are willing to do full kitchen exhaust system inspections every time they go in to a restaurant.

You can say that it is the restaurants problem all you want, but they should be able to trust their hood cleaners, especially the certified ones. I had a guy a few weeks ago that was so convinced that he was having his cleaning done right, that he almost didn't want us to check the system, just wanted a price. When we showed him the pictures, he almost through some plates across the kitchen. He even had a whole checklist in place that the cleaners would sign off on, man he really got the wool pulled over his eyes, and this was by a certified company that signs an agreement to uphold high ethical standards.

It just shouldn't be that way. When a company says they are going to do something, they should do it, and not use ambiguous NFPA 96 codes to disguise the fact that they are simply incompetent.

Matt
 
I find it hard to believe that our industry is much different than lets say dry wallers, carpenters, pool builders, janitors and so on. You have good ones and you have bad ones. The fire agencies have the power and the control in the local area. They should be compelled to check for safety. The fact that a competitor is checking the work of another company adds a lot of prejudicial facts and information. The facts and pictures taken by a company that works within such a corrupt industry is suspect on its own, as we are lead to beleave. This is why we have AHJ’s.
 
David Saulque said:
One problem that we have is the pictures themselves. Pictures taken in New York could be taken for pictures in Montana. Hood and fans do not for the most part can’t be identified-why because they look the same. One way that the hoods could be identified is that each sequence pictures have the name or a number ID on the hood. Those numbers should be located in key areas so that the photo would include the name or number.

Obviously this is a pipe dream and it must start with new construction by code. I know everyone knows there pictures, but when a layman looks they look similar and the difference is slight at best if the hoods are the same manufacture.
Click to expand...

A metal tag with the number, thats a great idea David.
 
Well I still think that if a company finds shoddy workmanship, he has a duty to report it. I know I would feel bad if I turned on the news and saw a restaurant burning that I had just looked at, and not done anything about it.

The pictures and reporting to the AHJ is just a step in the right direction, the problem will never be solved until regular inspections on kitchen exhaust systems are being done by FD's that are properly trained on what to look for. In an area like ours, even if that happens, the FD's would hit maybe 10% of all the restaurants in LA.
 
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