Watford · 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 Watford, and certify it to the TR19 Grease standard your insurer expects.
Watford
Watford rates around 1,000 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.
Kitchens across Watford work out of tight, mixed premises - St Albans Road, Harlequin, Lower High Street - their extract snaking through concealed voids to roof-mounted fans. We take the whole run to the TR19 Grease standard, hood to fan, reaching the horizontal legs and vertical risers a canopy wipe never touches.
It is not only kitchens: we also clean the dry supply and extract ductwork in Watford offices, schools and public buildings, and the lint-packed laundry runs behind its hotel and care-home dryers. The busiest kitchens - West Herts College, Watford General Hospital, Vicarage Road and the town hotels - coat their hidden ducting in grease quickest, and that is the very path a fire follows.
The standard
TR19 Grease is the benchmark Watford insurers and fire risk assessors expect - measured across the whole extract run, not just the visible mouth of the canopy.
Because the standard is written around film thickness, it sets the depth that triggers a clean and re-test. In the mixed roof spaces around St Albans Road and Lower High Street, a canopy-and-filter wipe leaves the duct interior - where grease piles up and a fire runs - completely alone. We reach the whole Watford run through existing hatches and new ones we cut, clean back to bright metal, take before-and-after grease-depth figures at set points, and certify it to TR19 Grease with those depths on the 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 Watford hotels, care homes and gyms.
On the ground in Watford
We are in Watford's ductwork and plant every week. The proof is the jobs, not the stock photos.
A commercial laundry in Watford had loose textile lint filling more than half the cross-section of the low-level extraction ductwork. We ran localised high-power vacuum extraction and swept the long horizontal lines with non-sparking flexible rods, roughly doubling the velocity at the exhaust terminal and protecting the machinery. We cordoned the workspace off with high-visibility tape to keep the operating staff safe.
When it is due
Ductwork rarely warns you politely. In a busy Watford kitchen these are the tells.
The tells are plain: steam that lingers, odours drifting back over the diners, drips off the canopy onto a St Albans Road line, a rim of grease at the filters, or a Watford insurer or fire assessment wanting a TR19 certificate you cannot show. Frequency tracks the cooking load - a hard-frying Harlequin 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 Watford 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 Lower High Street 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 Watford fire logbook.
Why it matters
Three duties push every Watford 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 Watford 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 St Albans 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 current TR19 Grease certificate is the evidence your Watford insurer expects. Without it, a fire claim can be reduced or refused outright - an expensive gap to find after the event.
Hygiene and environmental health. Food hygiene inspections by Watford Borough Council take in the condition of the building, ventilation included, so a grease-laden system can cost you on the rating an Environmental Health Officer awards - never mind the smell and the dropping extraction your kitchen team works under.
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 St Albans Road kitchen sits in a tighter band than a daytime Harlequin cafe. We measure the grease load and confirm your interval.
Yes. The fan at the top of a Lower High Street 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. We clean the dry ductwork and air-handling in Watford offices, schools and public buildings, and the lint-heavy laundry ducts in the Hertfordshire hotels and care homes, alongside kitchen grease ducts.
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 Lower High Street conversions where the run was boxed in with no hatches.
Yes - from St Albans Road and Harlequin kitchens to the offices, schools and industrial units across Watford and the wider Hertfordshire.
A dated TR19 certificate, before-and-after photographs of each section, and an access report for your fire logbook - the evidence a St Albans Road operator's insurer and fire risk assessor expect.
Yes. We work overnight, early mornings and closing days for the St Albans Road and Harlequin kitchens, and around shift patterns at commercial and production sites, at no extra charge for out-of-hours work.
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