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Fire in Hospital Ductwork
- Thread starter TJacobs
- Start date
FM William Burns
REGISTERED
Wonder if they are following the newer performance based schedules for damper inspections 
Coug Dad
Platinum Member
What burned inside an environmental air duct? Could not play the video at work. Did it provide additional information?
Insurance Engineer
REGISTERED
Was it a kitchen fire over a deep fat fryer that got into the duct work?
I had a hospital a few months ago that had over 250' of duct work for a large kitchen with deep fat fryers and grills that was NEVER cleaned properly as per NFPA 96. When I reviewed the duct cleaning company inspection reports they gave me they looked OK, it said the duct was cleaned every 3 months. I then asked the question, so do they clean the ENTIRE length of the duct work from the hood in the kitchen to the roof? They said they had no idea since it is done at night when no one is here. We then called the duct cleaning company which has been cleaning the ducts for 10 years to find out, they said oh no we can not get to the entire length of duct because they have no clean outs to reach the entire length, we clean what we can reach, the top 10' and the bottom 20'!
They just got done installing 10 clean outs to reach the entire length of duct for the tune of $25k. My contact told me the grease was several inches thick on the sections they finally got to.
Many times the kitchens in hospitals are operated by third party companies and is responsible for the duct cleaning. They go with the low bid and can care less. So bottom line next time you do an inspection ask the question I did, do you clean the entire length of the duct work?
I had a hospital a few months ago that had over 250' of duct work for a large kitchen with deep fat fryers and grills that was NEVER cleaned properly as per NFPA 96. When I reviewed the duct cleaning company inspection reports they gave me they looked OK, it said the duct was cleaned every 3 months. I then asked the question, so do they clean the ENTIRE length of the duct work from the hood in the kitchen to the roof? They said they had no idea since it is done at night when no one is here. We then called the duct cleaning company which has been cleaning the ducts for 10 years to find out, they said oh no we can not get to the entire length of duct because they have no clean outs to reach the entire length, we clean what we can reach, the top 10' and the bottom 20'!
They just got done installing 10 clean outs to reach the entire length of duct for the tune of $25k. My contact told me the grease was several inches thick on the sections they finally got to.
Many times the kitchens in hospitals are operated by third party companies and is responsible for the duct cleaning. They go with the low bid and can care less. So bottom line next time you do an inspection ask the question I did, do you clean the entire length of the duct work?