Seaham · 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 Seaham, and certify it to the TR19 Grease standard your insurer expects.
Seaham
Seaham 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.
The city's kitchens sit in tight, mixed stock - Tempest Road, Blandford Place, Dawdon - 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 - hotel and spa kitchens, care-home kitchens, seafront cafes and the busy town-centre takeaways - build grease fastest in the concealed lengths where flame spreads.
The standard
TR19 Grease is the benchmark Seaham insurers and fire risk assessors expect - measured across the whole extract run, not just the visible mouth of the canopy.
The standard works in grease-film thickness, fixing the depth at which a run must be cleaned and re-tested. In the shared roof voids around Tempest Road and Dawdon, wiping the canopy and filters leaves the ductwork - the long concealed sections that gather grease and carry fire - untouched. We open the full Seaham run through existing and newly cut inspection hatches, strip it to bare metal, log grease-depth readings at fixed points before and after, and issue a TR19 Grease certificate with the post-clean depths recorded.
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 Seaham hotels, care homes and gyms.
On the ground in Seaham
We are in Seaham's ductwork and plant every week. The proof is the jobs, not the stock photos.
The staff-toilet ceiling grilles at a busy Seaham health centre were clogged with matted dust and pulling next to nothing. We cleaned the grilles out, brushed through the branch runs and checked that the roof extract fan was doing its job. The washrooms cleared of stale air with extraction back to a proper rate, and everything was running normally again by opening. We timed the visit for half-term while the centre was quiet.
When it is due
Ductwork rarely warns you politely. In a busy Seaham kitchen these are the tells.
The tells are plain: steam that lingers, odours drifting back over the diners, drips off the canopy onto a Tempest Road line, a rim of grease at the filters, or a Seaham insurer or fire assessment wanting a TR19 certificate you cannot show. Frequency tracks the cooking load - a hard-frying Blandford Place 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 Seaham 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 Dawdon 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 Seaham fire logbook.
Why it matters
Three duties push every Seaham 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 Seaham 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 Tempest Road 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 Seaham 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 Durham County 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 Tempest Road kitchen sits in a tighter band than a daytime Blandford Place cafe. We measure the grease load and confirm your interval.
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 Dawdon conversions where the run was boxed in with no hatches.
A dated TR19 certificate, before-and-after photographs of each section, and an access report for your fire logbook - the evidence a Tempest Road operator's insurer and fire risk assessor expect.
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 Tempest Road and Dawdon where the runs are long and awkward.
Yes - from Tempest Road and Blandford Place kitchens to the offices, schools and industrial units across Seaham and the wider County Durham.
Yes. We work overnight, early mornings and closing days for the Tempest Road and Blandford Place kitchens, and around shift patterns at commercial and production sites, at no extra charge for out-of-hours work.
Yes. The fan at the top of a Dawdon 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.
Local knowledge
The Londonderry Bottleworks, run from 1853 under John Candlish, was until 1921 the largest bottle maker in England, its furnaces turning out as many as 20,000 hand-blown bottles a day, its waste glass tipped straight into the sea. Modern premises hide their by-products inside sealed ductwork instead, where grease and debris build unseen until airflow fails or fire finds a path. 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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