Guide - Compliance - UK-Wide
The clean is one day; the months between are where most of the compliance question lives. Here is the short, specific trail that shows your extract system is managed continuously, not just occasionally.
The short answer
A professional clean happens a few times a year. The months in between are where most of the compliance question actually lives - and a thin record over that gap is what trips kitchens up. The trail worth keeping is short but specific:
Kept together, these show a system being managed continuously - not just cleaned occasionally and forgotten in between.
What to keep
You do not need a filing cabinet - you need the right few documents, kept where they can be produced quickly:
Why the gap matters
The expectation around building safety is increasingly a continuous, documented thread - evidence that safety-critical systems are maintained over time, not just on the day a contractor visits. A kitchen extract system is one of those systems, and the in-between record is what turns a series of one-off cleans into a demonstrable history of management.
The moment this is tested is predictable. An insurer at renewal or after a fire, an environmental health officer mid-inspection, or a fire risk assessor will ask to see how the system has been kept. A current certificate plus a simple log answers cleanly; a gap - a clean with no certificate, a year with no log, a next-due date that quietly passed - is the loose thread that an investigation or a claim pulls on. The records are cheap to keep and expensive to be without.
Why it matters
The practical advice is simple: keep the certificate, the photos, the log and the next-due date together - one folder or one digital location - so the whole history can be produced in a moment rather than reconstructed under pressure. Where the system is shared, such as a leased unit or a multi-occupier building, make sure both the operator and whoever holds the landlord side have the certificate, because both may need it for their own fire risk assessment and insurance.
None of this is onerous. A current certificate, a basic cleaning log and a tracked next-due date are enough to show the system is being managed every day, not just on cleaning day - which is exactly the picture you want an insurer, an assessor or an inspector to see.
Questions
The current certificate and post-clean report with micron readings and photos, a simple in-house log of routine filter and canopy cleaning, any interim inspection notes, a reference linking the cleaning to your fire risk assessment, and the tracked next-due date so the clean is booked before it lapses.
Because it evidences the day-to-day maintenance between professional visits. Even a line per week showing filters and canopy were cleaned helps demonstrate the system is managed continuously, which is the picture an insurer or inspector wants to see.
Keep at least the current certificate and the history that shows an unbroken pattern of management, in one place that can be produced quickly. A continuous documented thread is increasingly the expectation for safety-critical systems like kitchen extract.
A gap - a clean with no certificate, a year with no log, a next-due date that quietly passed - is the loose thread an investigation or an insurance claim pulls on. The records are cheap to keep and expensive to be without when the system is questioned.
Both parties. In a leased unit or multi-occupier building, the operator and whoever holds the landlord side should each have the certificate, because both may need it for their own fire risk assessment and insurance.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Every clean gives you a registered certificate with readings, photos and a next-due date to file alongside your in-house log. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.