When do you Blow the Whistle?
We received a call from an Oriental restaurant. The health inspector was there and the manager of the restaurant wanted me to come over right away to give them a bid for cleaning! We assumed the exhaust systems along with walls, equipment, etc (very hard to understand these folks). We have never done work in this kitchen before; they apparently got our name from the yellow pages.
When I arrived and talked with the owner, he said they needed the walls, and some shelving cleaned and the floor behind the woks. The walls are somewhat yellowed.
I asked about the exhaust system and was told that it just had been cleaned. I looked and sure enough there is a national contractors tag showing that it had recently been serviced. Filters were not cleaned and are grease bound (they have another service that exchanges them once per month)!
The owner explained that the health inspector instructed him to have the walls and shelving cleaned and then have a pest exterminator come in and get rid of the Bats that are in the kitchen! I asked to see the exhaust fan.
I believe that this is an example of a gross failure of the enforcement system (AHJ) to handle the ventilation of grease generating equipment.
All of my questions begin with WHY?
Why would it be designed this way? Why would the AHJ sign off when it was installed? Why would a national cleaning contractor only clean the plenum? Why didn’t the health inspector look outside the building? Why hasn’t the Fire Marshall inspected this system?
The yellowing on the walls (in my opinion) has been caused from lack of draw from the exhaust system. The bats probably are entering the kitchen via the exhaust system.
This building is a combination of shops, restaurants and apartments. When it catches fire I believe there will be loss of life!!
I have never contacted a fire department regarding any kitchen before, but this may be my first!
What would you guys do? Hard to just walk away and forget about it!
Oh, by the way, they didn’t want the fan and duct cleaned just the walls and stuff in the kitchen! They said the fan and duct are uncleanable!
Dave Olson