Melksham · 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 Melksham, and certify it to the TR19 Grease standard your insurer expects.
Melksham
Melksham rates hundreds of 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.
From Union Street to King Street and Sandridge Road, the town's cooklines vent through long hidden ducting that climbs to a roof fan. We clean it end to end to the TR19 Grease standard - not just the canopy, but the flat and rising sections where grease really collects.
Kitchens are only half the work - we also strip the dry supply and extract ductwork of Melksham schools, offices and civic buildings, and the lint-choked dryer runs behind its hotels and care homes. It is the hardest-pressed kitchens - takeaway and restaurant kitchens, pub and hotel kitchens, school and factory canteens and the busy town-centre food strips - that glaze their hidden ducting quickest, and that coating is the road a fire takes.
The standard
TR19 Grease is the benchmark Melksham insurers and fire risk assessors expect - measured across the whole extract run, not just the visible mouth of the canopy.
The standard is written in film thickness: once grease reaches a set depth the run has to be cleaned and proven again. In the crowded roof voids off Union Street and Sandridge Road, a wipe of the canopy and filters never reaches the ductwork behind them, where the grease that carries fire quietly gathers. We work the whole Melksham run through hatches already in place and others we cut, bring it back to bright metal, note grease depths at fixed stations before and after, and certify to TR19 Grease with the closing figures logged.
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 Melksham hotels, care homes and gyms.
On the ground in Melksham
We are in Melksham's ductwork and plant every week. The proof is the jobs, not the stock photos.
A well-known Melksham office suite had its supply ducting coated in dust, and staff had been grumbling about stale, warm air for a while. We drove rotary brushes and a negative-air machine through the branch runs and fitted fresh pocket filters in place of the tired ones. The open-plan floor felt noticeably fresher and the musty smell had lifted, so much so that the client rebooked us on the spot. The practice manager kept the tea coming all morning.
When it is due
Ductwork rarely warns you politely. In a busy Melksham kitchen these are the tells.
The tells are plain: steam that lingers, odours drifting back over the diners, drips off the canopy onto a Union Street line, a rim of grease at the filters, or a Melksham insurer or fire assessment wanting a TR19 certificate you cannot show. Frequency tracks the cooking load - a hard-frying King Street kitchen needs it far more often than a quiet cafe - and your certificate sets the date, so nothing is left to chance.
How it runs
Inspect the full Melksham 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 Sandridge Road 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 Melksham fire logbook.
Why it matters
Three duties push every Melksham 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 Melksham 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 Union Street 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. To a Melksham insurer a current TR19 Grease certificate is the proof the extract has been kept up. Let it lapse and a fire claim can be scaled back or declined outright - the kind of gap nobody wants to find with the kitchen already gutted.
Hygiene and environmental health. When Wiltshire 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 Union Street kitchen sits in a tighter band than a daytime King Street cafe. We measure the grease load and confirm your interval.
The full run, canopy through the concealed horizontal and vertical ductwork to the roof fan - the hidden sections a canopy-only clean leaves loaded, which matters in the tight stock around Union Street and Sandridge Road where the runs are long and awkward.
A dated TR19 certificate, before-and-after photographs of each section, and an access report for your fire logbook - the evidence a Union Street operator's insurer and fire risk assessor expect.
Yes. The fan at the top of a Sandridge Road 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.
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 Sandridge Road conversions where the run was boxed in with no hatches.
Little, if it is planned. We survey the Melksham run first, agree a slot overnight or on a close day, sheet off the kitchen and clean section by section, so a King Street cookline is back in service for the next shift.
Yes. We clean the dry ductwork and air-handling in Melksham offices, schools and public buildings, and the lint-heavy laundry ducts in the Wiltshire hotels and care homes, alongside kitchen grease ducts.
Local knowledge
Before rubber, Melksham lived on wool, and the Shell Guide once called it the most industrialised town in Wiltshire outside Swindon, its riverside mills thick with airborne fibre and dust. Those trades are gone, but modern premises hide their dust inside sealed ductwork instead, where grease and debris build unseen until airflow fails or fire finds a path. Across the Bowerhill units and the town-centre kitchens the story is the same - what you cannot see is what stops the system working. We clean and inspect ventilation and extract ductwork across the town, then hand over photographic before-and-after evidence of every run.
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