Cost & value / What drives the price
Square metres are the least of it. The duct run, the canopy count and what you actually cook on move the quote far more than floor area alone.
Beyond square metres
It is natural to assume a deep clean is priced by floor area - bigger kitchen, bigger bill. Floor area plays a part, but it is often the smallest of the real drivers. A large, simple kitchen can cost less than a small one with an awkward, grease-heavy extract system.
What a surveyor is really counting is the system: how much ductwork there is, how many canopies, what you cook on, and how the whole lot is reached.
The duct run and the canopies
The length and complexity of the ductwork is usually the biggest single factor. Cleaning the full run to standard - not just the canopy - is the bulk of the job, and a long duct with bends, risers and hidden sections above ceilings takes far longer than a short, straight run off a single hood.
The number of canopies multiplies that. Each canopy and its extract is effectively its own cleaning task, with its own filters, plenum and duct branch. A kitchen with two or three canopies is not one job scaled up - it is two or three jobs, which is why counting them matters more than pacing out the floor.
What you cook on
The equipment mix decides how hard the system works. Fryers, chargrills and especially solid-fuel ovens throw a great deal of vapourised grease and carbon into the extract, so a system serving them loads quickly and needs more cleaning time and often more frequent visits. The same-sized kitchen running mostly combi ovens and induction produces far less.
Each heavy appliance also adds cooking-line work on the deep clean itself - behind, under and inside equipment that daily cleaning never touches. So the count of what you cook on shapes both the price and how often you will need the clean.
Why the survey counts
This is why a credible quote counts your actual system rather than applying a rate per square metre. A surveyor measures the duct run and its access, counts the canopies, notes the cooking line and reads the grease level - then prices the labour and kit that those specifics demand.
So knowing your kitchen's size is necessary but not sufficient. The equipment mix and the access decide the quote as much as the footprint does - which is why two kitchens of identical size can be priced quite differently and both be right.
Questions
Not necessarily. A large, simple kitchen with a short duct run can cost less than a small one with a long, complex extract system. It is the system, not the floor area, that drives the quote.
Because cleaning the full length to standard is the bulk of the work. Long runs with bends, risers and hidden sections take longer and need more access than a short, straight duct off one canopy.
Yes. Fryers, chargrills and solid-fuel equipment throw far more grease than combi ovens, so a system serving them loads faster and needs more cleaning time than the same-sized kitchen doing lighter cooking.
Each canopy and its extract is effectively its own cleaning task, and each heavy appliance adds cooking-line work. Two canopies and a bank of fryers is a bigger job than one canopy over combis.
The length and complexity of the ductwork, the number and size of canopies, the equipment mix and how the system is accessed - the things that decide labour and kit, rather than a simple room measurement.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We survey the duct run, the canopies and the cooking line so the quote reflects your kitchen, not a rate per square metre. Tell us what you cook on.