Phoenix Journal · Ductwork
The right badges on a contractor's website are more than decoration - they are how you prove to your insurer and your fire risk assessor that the work was done properly. Here is what genuinely matters when you appoint a kitchen extract, duct or LEV cleaning contractor.
Choosing a contractor
When something goes wrong in a commercial kitchen - a fire, a failed insurance claim, an enforcement visit - the first question asked is whether the extract system was cleaned to a recognised standard by a competent contractor.
Accreditations are how you answer that question without a debate. They are third-party evidence that a business has been independently audited, that its technicians hold real qualifications, and that its paperwork will stand up when your insurer, your fire risk assessor or an environmental health officer asks to see it. Anyone can print "fully certified" on a van. The value is in the accreditations that a named external body issues, records on a public register, and can withdraw if standards slip.
For kitchen extraction and ductwork specifically, this matters more than in most trades. Grease-laden ductwork is a genuine fire risk, and the buildings insurance behind your premises will almost always require cleaning to a defined standard at a defined frequency. If the contractor you appointed cannot demonstrate the right accreditations, you may find that a clean you paid for does nothing to protect your cover. So the accreditations are not box-ticking - they are the difference between a job that reduces your risk and one that simply moves grease around.
Start with the specialist ones, because a generic cleaning firm is not the same as an accredited ventilation hygiene contractor. For kitchen extract work, the benchmark is the BESA (Building Engineering Services Association) TR19 Grease specification - the standalone standard for managing the fire risk of grease build-up in extract systems. It is the standard British insurers and risk assessors recognise, so "we clean to TR19 Grease" should be the baseline, not the headline.
The accreditation that backs that claim is membership of the BESA Vent Hygiene Register (VHR). The VHR is the UK's official register of TR19 contractors - members are independently audited, and their technicians must hold the Grease Hygiene Technician (GHT) qualification to self-certify work. GHT3-level technicians are the ones who produce risk assessments and method statements, carry out post-clean cleanliness testing and reporting, and mark out or fit the access panels a system needs to be cleaned properly. The register gives insurers and fire risk assessors an auditable record they can check, which is exactly why it carries weight with bodies such as the RISC Authority. As of March 2026 the VHR was extended to cover TR19 Air as well as Grease, so a strong contractor may now be registered for both grease extract and general supply-and-extract ductwork.
If your site also runs local exhaust ventilation - for example over a dishwash area, a bakery or any process producing airborne contaminants - there is a separate, statutory layer. Under COSHH regulation 9, every LEV system must undergo a Thorough Examination and Test (often shortened to TExT) at least every 14 months by a competent person. The industry benchmark qualification for that examiner is BOHS P601, a Level 4 qualification delivered over roughly four days and 24 hours of learning, with P604 covering commissioning and deeper diagnostic work. P601 is not strictly a legal requirement - the law asks for competence - but the HSE strongly encourages it, and in practice it is the clearest proof that whoever tests your LEV knows what they are doing.
Specialist standards tell you the work will be done to the right technical spec. Health and safety accreditations tell you the contractor is safe to have on your premises - working at height over hot equipment, in confined ceiling voids and around live services. The umbrella term to know is SSIP (Safety Schemes in Procurement). SSIP is not itself an assessment - it is the UK body that ties together the recognised health and safety pre-qualification schemes so buyers are not comparing apples with oranges.
The schemes that sit under SSIP are the badges you will actually see: CHAS (the Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme), SafeContractor and Constructionline are the most common. Any one of them shows the contractor has had its health and safety management, insurances, policies and risk assessments independently checked. A useful thing to understand is "Deem to Satisfy" - SSIP's mutual recognition agreement - which means a contractor accredited by one member scheme is recognised by the others, so you do not need to insist on a specific badge as long as it is a genuine SSIP member. If you want a fuller breakdown of how these interlock, our guide to what CHAS, SafeContractor and SSIP accreditations mean walks through each one.
Beyond health and safety, the ISO management standards are a good sign of a well-run business rather than a legal must-have. Look for ISO 9001 for quality management, ISO 45001 for occupational health and safety, and ISO 14001 for environmental management. A contractor certified to these has had its processes audited by a certification body and re-audited regularly - it will not tell you how clean your ductwork ends up, but it does tell you the firm has systems, records and accountability behind the operatives on site.
A logo on a website is a claim, not proof. The good news is that every accreditation worth having can be verified independently, and a reputable contractor will be glad to help you do it. For TR19 work, ask for the contractor's VHR membership and check it against the BESA register rather than taking a badge at face value. For LEV testing, ask to see the examiner's BOHS P601 certificate. For health and safety, ask for the current CHAS, SafeContractor or Constructionline certificate and note the expiry date - accreditations lapse, and last year's certificate proves nothing about this year's audit.
Then look at what lands after the work. The strongest signal of a properly accredited contractor is the post-clean documentation - a report showing before-and-after evidence, the cleanliness verification results, a system schematic, the access points used and a recommended re-clean frequency tied to how heavily your kitchen is used. That report is what your insurer and fire risk assessor will want to see, so treat it as part of the deliverable, not an optional extra. Keeping an eye on your own operation between visits helps too; our note on the numbers every kitchen manager should watch weekly covers the day-to-day signals that tell you a system is due attention.
Questions
TR19 Grease is not itself a law - it is a BESA specification. However, you have a legal duty under fire safety and health and safety legislation to manage the fire risk from grease build-up in your extract system, and TR19 Grease is the recognised way to demonstrate you are doing that. In practice most commercial property insurers write cleaning to the TR19 standard, at a defined frequency, into their policy terms, so failing to meet it can jeopardise a claim.
Sometimes, but they are separate disciplines with separate accreditations. TR19 grease extract cleaning is verified through BESA VHR membership and the Grease Hygiene Technician qualification, while statutory LEV Thorough Examination and Test relies on a competent examiner, ideally holding BOHS P601. A well-rounded contractor may offer both, but always check the specific accreditation for the specific job rather than assuming one badge covers everything.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Phoenix surveys and cleans kitchen and building ductwork to the TR19 standard - measured, cleaned and certificated, UK-wide.