Guide - TR19 Grease - UK-Wide
Lunch runs into evening and weekends run all day, so a pub clean is built around the rota - overnight or on a closing day, back before prep. Here is how it fits, and who owns the duct in a leased house.
The short answer
A pub kitchen rarely has a convenient daytime gap - lunch runs into evening, weekends run all day, and there is usually only one cookline. So the clean is built around the rota: overnight after the kitchen closes, on a quiet weekday, or on a regular closing day, with the system back and ready before the next prep.
The interval still comes from the cooking, not the calendar - but for a pub the scheduling is half the job. A clean that loses you a Friday service has solved the wrong problem.
The pub cookline
Pub catering covers a wide span, and the grease load follows it. A wet-led local doing a few baskets of chips and the odd burger sits at the lighter end. A gastropub or a carvery running fryers, a chargrill and a busy Sunday service loads far harder, often landing squarely in the heavy band through the weekend even if midweek is quiet. The seasonal swing is real too - a beer garden kitchen flat out across a summer of barbecues and a function room through December can both jump a band for weeks at a time.
Two features of pubs make the extract system worth particular attention. First, many are old buildings, where ductwork runs through concealed voids and up through the structure to a roof fan - long, awkward routes where grease settles and a fire could travel unseen. Second, the kitchen often sits directly below or beside accommodation or function rooms, so the fire-safety stakes of a greasy duct are higher than the floor area alone suggests.
Tied and leased houses
A large share of pubs are tied or leased, which makes responsibility for the extract system worth settling before anything is booked. Under the Fire Safety Order the operator running the kitchen is normally the responsible person for managing the grease risk, but where the lease puts maintenance of shared ductwork or the roof fan on the pub company, the duty for that stretch can sit with them. The classic failure is each side assuming the other has the duct in hand, so it goes years without a clean.
Reading the repairing covenants and agreeing in writing who arranges and pays for the clean removes that gap, and means the certificate ends up with whoever needs it for their fire risk assessment and insurance. At the end of a tenancy it matters again - a greasy system handed back can become a dilapidations charge.
Why it matters
Because a pub kitchen rarely stops, the extract clean is easy to keep putting off - there is never a good time. That is exactly how a system drifts past its safe interval, building grease in concealed ductwork above a building full of people. Set against that, an overnight clean every few months, scheduled around the sessions you cannot afford to lose, is a small and predictable cost.
The right approach for a pub is to survey the grease load, set an interval that reflects how the kitchen actually trades across the week and the seasons, and book the cleans out of hours so they never cost a service. You stay compliant, the duct stays inside safe limits, and you hold the certificate your insurer and fire risk assessor will ask for.
Questions
Out of hours. We work overnight after the kitchen closes, early mornings before prep, or on a regular closing day, at no extra charge for the out-of-hours work, so the clean never costs you a session.
Usually every three to six months, depending on how much frying and grilling you do and how the trade swings across the week and seasons. A survey measures the grease load and sets the interval, which can tighten for a busy summer or carvery weekend.
It depends on the lease. The operator running the kitchen is normally responsible for managing the grease risk, but where the lease puts maintenance of shared ductwork or the roof fan on the landlord, that part can be theirs. Agree it in writing before booking so nothing falls through the gap.
Older buildings often have long, concealed duct runs through voids and up to a roof fan - awkward routes where grease settles and a fire could travel unseen, frequently above accommodation or function rooms. That makes a thorough whole-system clean more important, not less.
Yes. Every clean finishes with a TR19 Grease certificate carrying micron readings, before-and-after photos and a dated next-due interval, which is what your insurer and fire risk assessor will expect to see.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We survey the grease load, set the right interval and clean out of hours at no extra charge. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.