Guide - Compliance - UK-Wide
A schedule is not a date in a diary - it is a documented, risk-based plan you can evidence. Here is what makes one stand up to an insurer, an assessor or an inspection.
The short answer
"We clean it now and then" is not a schedule. What an insurer, a fire risk assessor or an enforcing authority wants to see is a documented, risk-based plan you can evidence - intervals set from a survey, registered certificates for each clean, and a record that shows the system is being managed over time:
The difference between a clean kitchen and a provable one is the paperwork - and the paperwork is what protects you when it is asked for.
What makes it provable
A schedule you can defend is built from a few connected pieces:
Why provability is the point
Record-keeping around building safety has been getting more, not less, important. The expectation now is a continuous, documented thread showing that safety-critical systems are maintained - and a kitchen extract system is one of those. A schedule that exists only in someone's head, or as a stack of unmatched invoices, does not meet that expectation; a documented plan with traceable certificates does.
The moment it matters is always the same: an insurer at renewal or after a fire, an environmental health officer during an inspection, a fire risk assessor reviewing the premises. Each asks the same question - can you show this system is being managed? A provable schedule answers yes, with dates, readings and photographs. Without it, even a kitchen that has actually been cleaned can struggle to demonstrate it, and after a fire the absence of a record is exactly what puts a claim in doubt.
Why it matters
The effort in a provable schedule is mostly upfront - survey the system, set the interval, decide the review triggers, agree where the records live. After that it largely runs itself: clean on the interval, file the certificate, review when something changes. What you get for that small ongoing discipline is a kitchen that is not only clean but demonstrably managed, which is the version that survives an inspection, an insurance question or a core-business audit.
The sensible approach is to start with a survey, set the interval from the grease, and keep every certificate and review note in one place. A schedule built that way is not extra bureaucracy - it is the evidence that turns a clean system into a defensible one.
Questions
A documented, risk-based plan: an interval set from a survey of the grease load, a measured certificate for every clean, a recorded trigger for reviewing the interval, and the certificates and next-due dates kept together over time. Cleaning now and then with no records is not a schedule.
Because the record is what gets checked. An insurer, an environmental health officer or a fire risk assessor asks whether the system is being managed, and a documented plan with traceable certificates answers that. Even a kitchen that has been cleaned can struggle to demonstrate it without the paperwork.
From a survey that measures the grease deposit in microns and calculates the frequency needed to keep the mean inside safe limits. That turns the interval from a guess into a justified figure you can stand behind.
Whenever something changes the grease load - a new fryer or grill, a busier season, a shift to higher-grease cooking, or a change of menu. The plan should record those triggers so it moves with the kitchen rather than going stale.
The absence of a record is exactly what puts an insurance claim in doubt, because you cannot demonstrate the system was being managed. A provable schedule with dated certificates and photographs is the evidence that protects you when it matters most.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We survey, set your interval and issue a registered certificate for every clean, so your schedule is documented and ready when it is asked for. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.