Hood Cleaning in Nepean
A commercial hood is the stainless canopy over the cook line, and everything a hood clean touches sits inside it: the canopy interior and exterior, the baffle filters, the grease trough and cups along the bottom edge, and the plenum cavity hidden behind the filter bank. Nepean Hood Cleaning Pros degreases that assembly to the NFPA 96 limit of 0.078 inches, photographs every surface before and after, and leaves a signed certificate. Pricing starts at $385 per visit for one canopy up to ten feet.
What a hood is made of, part by part
Four components, each of which fails differently when it is left dirty.
The canopy. The visible stainless shell. Its interior collects a varnish of cooled grease that hardens with every service, and its underside above a charbroiler is usually the worst surface in the room. Cleaning it is mechanical work with degreaser and scrapers, not a wipe-down, because a polished exterior over a loaded interior is the single most common thing found on a kitchen that has only ever had a cosmetic clean.
The baffle filters. Angled stainless plates that force the airstream to change direction so grease drops out of it. They are the only part of the system designed to be removed, and on a fryer line they can hold a surprising amount of their own weight in grease. Every filter comes out, gets degreased in a soak tank or a controlled wash, and goes back in the correct orientation. A filter refitted upside down stops draining into the trough.
The grease trough and cups. The channel and removable cups at the bottom of the filter bank that catch what the filters shed. A full cup overflows down the canopy front onto the cook line, which is the drip a chef notices first.
The plenum. The cavity behind the filters, between the filter bank and the duct collar. It is out of sight, nobody wipes it during a shift, and it carries the heaviest grease loading in the hood after the canopy interior. A hood clean that skips the plenum is not a hood clean.
Type 1 vs Type 2 hoods: which one is over the line
The distinction decides whether NFPA 96 applies to the hood at all, and Nepean kitchens frequently have both in one room.
| Factor | Type 1 (grease) | Type 1 vs Type 2 (condensate or heat) |
|---|---|---|
| What it sits over | Fryers, charbroilers, griddles, ranges, woks, any appliance producing grease-laden vapour. | Type 2 sits over dishwashers, steamers, ovens and kettles, and handles steam and heat rather than grease. |
| Baffle filters | Required, and part of the fire barrier. | Type 2 usually has mesh or no filters at all, because there is no grease to intercept. |
| NFPA 96 scope | Fully in scope, including inspection frequency and cleaning to bare metal. | Type 2 falls outside the NFPA 96 grease-removal requirement, though a dirty condensate hood still fails a health inspection. |
| Fire suppression | Wet chemical suppression over the appliances and into the plenum. | Type 2 has no suppression, which is why misidentifying one for the other matters. |
| What gets cleaned here | Canopy, filters, troughs and plenum to the 0.078 inch limit, photographed and certified. | Type 2 hoods are cleaned as an add-on line item when they sit in the same room, and are listed separately on the certificate. |
Anything past the duct collar sits on the kitchen exhaust cleaning page. A hood clean stops at that collar by design, and the certificate says so.
How much does hood cleaning cost in Nepean?
Hood cleaning in Nepean starts at $385 per visit for a single canopy up to ten feet, and $725 per visit for two to four canopies cleaned in the same visit. Both prices are per visit, confirmed in writing before the booking, and matched by the invoice.
Four things move a hood-only price: canopy length beyond ten feet, the number of canopies, how long it has been since the last clean, and whether filters need replacing rather than washing. A first clean on a kitchen that has never been on a schedule takes longer than any subsequent visit, because hardened deposit has to be broken down rather than rinsed off, and that shows up in the walk-through quote rather than as an overrun on the invoice.
What does not move the price is the paperwork. Photographs of every cleaned surface, the signed certificate, the dated sticker, and the WSIB and insurance proof supplied before the crew arrives are standard on a $385 single-hood visit and on a written site quote alike. The full breakdown sits on the cost guide.
What the visit looks like in a working Nepean kitchen
A single-hood clean is normally one overnight visit, start to finish.
- Containment first. Plastic sheeting over the cook line, the appliances and the floor, so nothing runs down onto equipment a cook will use in six hours.
- Filters out. Every baffle filter is pulled, tagged if the kitchen has more than one bank, and degreased away from the line.
- Canopy and plenum. Degreaser applied and given dwell time, then scraped and washed down to bare metal where the deposit has hardened.
- Troughs and cups. Emptied, degreased and refitted, because a blocked trough puts the next month of drainage on the canopy face.
- Reassembly and photographs. Filters refitted in the correct orientation, containment removed, then before-and-after photographs of every surface and the certificate and sticker completed.
Crews work overnight or early morning across the Merivale Road and Robertson Road strips and the Barrhaven plazas, so a restaurant never gives up a service to be cleaned.
Questions about hood cleaning
What does hood cleaning include, exactly?
Hood cleaning includes the canopy interior and exterior, every baffle filter, the grease trough and cups, and the plenum cavity behind the filter bank, all degreased to the NFPA 96 limit of 0.078 inches. It does not include the vertical riser, the horizontal duct runs or the rooftop fan, which are covered by kitchen exhaust cleaning and named as excluded on the certificate when only the hood is booked.
Can kitchen staff just clean the hood themselves?
Staff can and should wipe the canopy exterior and empty the grease cups between visits, and that genuinely slows the loading. What staff cannot do is reach the plenum behind the filter bank or degrease a canopy interior to bare metal without containment, chemicals and the time to let them work. The Ontario Fire Code expects the system to be inspected and cleaned by someone competent to do it, and an inspector asks for the certificate, not for a cleaning rota.
How long does a hood clean take?
A single-canopy kitchen is usually three to five hours including containment, dwell time and reassembly, which fits inside one overnight visit. Two to four canopies normally take one longer night rather than two visits. A first clean on a heavily loaded system takes longer, and the walk-through quote says so before the booking rather than after.
Do the baffle filters get replaced?
Filters are degreased and refitted, not replaced, unless one is warped, split or missing a baffle. A damaged filter stops changing the direction of the airstream, which means it stops dropping grease into the trough and starts sending it into the plenum and the duct instead. Replacements are quoted as a separate line item and never added silently.
Will the fire suppression system be affected?
No. Suppression nozzles and links are protected during cleaning and left in place. Nepean Hood Cleaning Pros cleans the exhaust system and does not service, recharge or recertify suppression equipment, which is separate work for a licensed suppression contractor. If a nozzle cap is missing or a link looks overdue, it is photographed and flagged on the report so the operator can book the right trade.