Guide - TR19 Grease - UK-Wide
A hall, canteen or quiet pub kitchen builds grease slowly - but it still builds, and the fire-safety and insurance duties do not shrink with your covers. Here is why annual is a floor, not an option.
The short answer
A church hall, a small office canteen, a B and B kitchen or a pub that only does a few covers still builds grease - just more slowly. Under TR19 Grease a low-use system still carries a recognised interval, and twelve months is a floor, not an optional extra:
The standard is risk-based, not generous to quiet kitchens. If anything fries, chargrills or sautes - even occasionally - grease reaches the ductwork, and the law that requires you to manage that risk does not pause because you are not busy.
Why grease still gathers
The instinct in a light-use kitchen is that there is nothing to clean. In reality, several things keep grease accumulating even when the room is quiet:
None of this is dramatic week to week. Over a year it is more than enough to take a neglected light-use system past the point where a fire risk assessor or an insurer would expect to see it cleaned.
The duty does not shrink
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places a duty on the responsible person to manage fire risk, and grease in a kitchen extract system is a recognised source of that risk. The Order does not have a small-kitchen exemption. A quiet venue still needs a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, and that assessment is expected to account for the extract system and its cleaning.
Insurers take the same line. Many commercial policies require extraction cleaning at the TR19 risk-based frequency and ask to see a current certificate. The premium and the cover do not get more forgiving because the kitchen is small - and a grease fire on an uncleaned light-use system, with no certificate to show, is just as capable of putting a claim in doubt as one in a busy restaurant.
Getting it right
For a genuinely low-use kitchen, a once-a-year clean to TR19 Grease, with a survey to confirm the grease load, is usually the whole job. The value of the survey is that it tells you whether twelve months is right or whether your occasional busy spells justify shortening it. Either way you finish with a measured interval and a dated certificate rather than a hopeful assumption that quiet equals clean.
The mistake to avoid is treating low use as no use. A system that is left for years because the kitchen is rarely busy is exactly the kind that fails a survey, fails an inspection, and lets a small flare-up at the cookline find fuel in the duct. Regular, even if only annual, is what keeps a quiet kitchen safe and compliant.
Questions
If anything is fried, grilled or sauteed, grease reaches the ductwork and the system needs cleaning. TR19 Grease sets an indicative twelve-month interval for light use, and the fire-safety duty to manage that risk applies regardless of how busy you are.
Idle systems do not stay clean. Existing deposits harden and oxidise, dust settles onto greasy surfaces, and occasional busy days add fresh grease. The result over a year is a combustible layer that a survey will pick up even in a rarely-used kitchen.
There is no single fixed interval in law, but you have a duty under fire safety legislation to manage the risk, and most insurers require cleaning at the TR19 risk-based frequency. For a light-use kitchen that usually means an annual clean with a certificate to evidence it.
Generally yes. Smaller, lightly-loaded systems sit at the lower end of the price range because there is less grease to remove and a simpler system to access. The survey confirms the scope so the quote matches the kitchen.
A survey measures the actual grease load and tells us whether annual is right or whether occasional busy periods justify cleaning sooner. You finish with a measured interval rather than an assumption that a quiet kitchen must be a clean one.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Even a low-use system needs an annual clean and a certificate. We survey, degrease and document it in a single visit. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.