Harlow · TR19 Grease
We clean the full commercial duct run - grease, dry and laundry ductwork, canopy to roof fan - for kitchens, offices and industrial sites across Harlow, and certify it to the TR19 Grease standard your insurer expects.
Harlow
Harlow rates around 650 food premises, and behind a large share sits an extract duct a canopy clean never reaches - plus the dry ductwork and air-handling that keep its offices and public buildings running.
The city's kitchens sit in tight, mixed stock - Broad Walk, Water Gardens, Harvey Centre - with long concealed duct runs up to roof fans. We clean the full run to the TR19 Grease standard, canopy to fan, including the horizontal and vertical sections a canopy-only clean leaves coated.
The same crews clean dry ventilation and air-handling ductwork in offices, schools and civic buildings, plus the combustible lint runs behind hotel and care-home dryers. High-turnover sites - Harlow College, the Princess Alexandra Hospital, the Harlow Arena and the town hotels - build grease fastest in the concealed lengths where flame spreads.
The standard
TR19 Grease is the benchmark Harlow insurers and fire risk assessors expect - measured across the whole extract run, not just the visible mouth of the canopy.
Grease is measured by thickness, and the standard sets the depth at which a system must be cleaned and re-tested. Around Broad Walk and Harvey Centre, where the concealed runs thread through mixed roof voids, a canopy-and-filter wipe leaves the ductwork itself - the long hidden sections where grease accumulates and a fire travels - untouched. We access the full Harlow run through existing and newly fitted inspection hatches, clean to bare metal, record before-and-after grease-depth readings at set points, and issue a TR19 Grease certificate with a post-clean depth record.
By system
The fire risk. Fried-food extract coats duct walls in combustible grease; cleaned canopy to fan and certified to TR19 Grease.
Supply and general extract in offices and public buildings, carrying dust and debris that throttles airflow and loads the air-handling unit; cleaned to TR19.
The hidden one. Tumble-dryer ducting packs with lint - highly combustible - in Harlow hotels, care homes and gyms.
On the ground in Harlow
We are in Harlow's ductwork and plant every week. The proof is the jobs, not the stock photos.
A mid-rise residential block in Harlow had cardboard boxes and refuse bags jammed between floors in the refuse chute, fully blocking it and breeding a foul smell. We cleared the obstruction with flexible breakdown poles and ran a full hot-water sanitising flush, restoring the drop to the ground-floor compactor and clearing the odour. We fitted a new heavy rubber draft curtain at the base to seal the bin-store smell out.
When it is due
Ductwork rarely warns you politely. In a busy Harlow kitchen these are the tells.
Watch for steam that hangs in the room, cooking smells creeping back over the tables, a canopy weeping onto a Broad Walk line, grease crusting at the filter rims, or a Harlow insurer or fire assessor calling for a TR19 certificate you do not hold. How often it needs doing rides on the cooking load - a hard-frying Water Gardens kitchen far more than a quiet daytime cafe - and the certificate fixes that interval, so the next clean is planned, not chanced.
How it runs
Inspect the full Harlow run, find the access gaps in the concealed sections, agree scope and frequency.
Fit inspection hatches where the run is sealed - common in the older Harvey Centre conversions - and protect the kitchen.
Canopy to roof fan, down to bare metal, with before-and-after grease-depth evidence.
TR19 Grease certificate, grease-depth record and next-due date for your Harlow fire logbook.
Why it matters
Three duties push every Harlow operator to keep ductwork clean, and they reinforce one another.
Fire safety law. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the responsible person for a Harlow premises must assess and manage fire risk. A grease-laden duct is one of the most serious risks in any catering building, because a flare-up on a Broad Walk cookline can travel the ductwork and spread fire through concealed voids. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the HSE reinforce the same duty of care.
Insurance. A live TR19 Grease certificate is what a Harlow insurer treats as evidence the system is maintained. Miss it and a fire claim may be reduced or refused - an expensive surprise once the damage is done.
Hygiene and environmental health. When Harlow Council carries out a food hygiene inspection it judges the physical state of the premises, and ventilation is part of that. A grease-choked extract can pull down the rating an Environmental Health Officer gives, on top of the odour and the weakening airflow your staff put up with.
It is set by cooking hours under TR19 Grease - roughly every three months for heavy use of 12 to 16 hours a day, every six for moderate, every twelve for light. A hard-frying Broad Walk kitchen sits in a tighter band than a daytime Water Gardens cafe. We measure the grease load and confirm your interval.
Little, if it is planned. We survey the Harlow run first, agree a slot overnight or on a close day, sheet off the kitchen and clean section by section, so a Water Gardens cookline is back in service for the next shift.
We fit compliant access panels where the ductwork has none, so every internal section can be reached, cleaned, inspected and certified - common in the older Harvey Centre conversions where the run was boxed in with no hatches.
Yes. The fan at the top of a Harvey Centre or city-centre riser is where grease throws off the blades and the run ends - we degrease it and its housing, because a loaded fan is what finally stops a system pulling.
Yes - from Broad Walk and Water Gardens kitchens to the offices, schools and industrial units across Harlow and the wider Essex.
Yes. We clean the dry ductwork and air-handling in Harlow offices, schools and public buildings, and the lint-heavy laundry ducts in the Essex hotels and care homes, alongside kitchen grease ducts.
A dated TR19 certificate, before-and-after photographs of each section, and an access report for your fire logbook - the evidence a Broad Walk operator's insurer and fire risk assessor expect.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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