Commercial Hood Cleaning in Kanata
Commercial hood cleaning is the part of the job that happens inside the kitchen: the canopy, the grease gutter and trough, the baffle filters, and the plenum chamber sitting behind them. Kanata Hood Cleaning Pros cleans all four to bare metal by hand rather than by chemical soak, photographs each one before and after, and issues a signed certificate naming exactly what was reached. Single-hood kitchens across Kanata, Stittsville, Carp and Richmond start from $385 per visit.
Bare metal is a measurable finish, not a figure of speech
The difference between a hood that looks clean and a hood that is clean is roughly three millimetres of hardened grease you cannot see from the floor.
Grease does not sit in a hood as a film. It bakes. Each service period lays down a fresh layer, and the heat coming off the line cures the layer underneath it into something closer to varnish than to oil. After a year of quarterly service that skips the hard parts, the canopy carries a dark, tacky crust that a degreaser and a cloth will lighten without removing.
That lightening is the problem. A wiped hood photographs beautifully. It is also still carrying most of its fuel load, because the wipe took off the soft top layer and left the cured base. An inspector running a fingernail or a scraper across the trough finds that base immediately, and so does a fire.
Bare metal means the scraper comes back clean and the surface underneath is the colour of the steel it was made from. Reaching it takes hot degreaser, dwell time and mechanical scraping in that order, on every internal surface of the assembly, not just the reachable ones.
The four parts of a hood assembly, and which one gets skipped
Three of these are visible from the kitchen floor. The fourth is the one that decides whether the cleaning was real.
| Component | What it does | How it is cleaned |
|---|---|---|
| Canopy interior | Captures rising vapour across the full width of the cook line | Hot degreaser applied, given dwell time, then hand-scraped across the whole internal surface including the corners and the seams |
| Grease gutter and trough | Catches condensed grease running down the canopy walls and drains it to a cup | Cup removed and washed, trough scraped along its full length, drain path cleared and tested |
| Baffle filters | Force the airstream to change direction so grease drops out before it enters the duct | Removed from the rails and washed away from the cook line, then inspected for warping, split baffles and missing clips |
| Plenum chamber | The cavity behind the filters where captured air collects before entering the duct collar | Reached with the filters out, scraped and degreased across the back wall, the ceiling of the cavity and the collar throat |
The plenum is the skipped one, and it is skipped for a practical reason rather than a lazy one. Reaching it means pulling every filter, working above head height into a cavity you cannot see into, and cleaning by feel across surfaces that are awkward on a good day. Nobody standing in the kitchen can tell whether it was done. That is exactly why it goes in the photographs.
What a filter tells you about the rest of the system
The filters are the cheapest diagnostic in the building, and most kitchens never read them.
Baffle filters work by making the air turn a corner it cannot carry grease around. That only happens if the baffles are the right shape, seated in their rails, and covering the full opening. A filter bank in poor condition does not just fail quietly. It sends the grease it should have caught straight into the plenum and the duct, which turns a cheap replacement into an expensive duct cleaning a year later.
Four failures show up repeatedly in west-end kitchens. Warped frames, usually from being run through a dish machine on a high-heat cycle. Split or crushed baffles from being dropped. Gaps at the end of the rail where a filter has gone missing and nobody has replaced it, which lets air bypass the bank entirely. And mesh filters fitted where baffles belong, which is a code problem as well as a performance one, because mesh holds grease inside the filter instead of draining it.
Every visit includes an inspection of the bank and a written note of anything found. Replacements are quoted separately rather than swapped in and billed after the fact.
Kitchens we clean across Kanata
Different rooms, different grease, different access.
Independent restaurants and pubs
The Hazeldean, Eagleson, Castlefrank and Stittsville Main Street corridors. Usually a single canopy over a mixed line of fryers, a flat top and a range, cleaned overnight after close and back in service for lunch.
Corporate and campus serveries
The Kanata North Technology Park and the Kanata Research Park. Grill and fryer stations under long multi-section canopies that cook hard through breakfast and lunch, then close. Cleaned mid-afternoon rather than overnight.
Hotel and banquet kitchens
The Palladium Drive corridor. Volume swings enormously between a booked weekend and a quiet week, so the schedule is set against the event calendar rather than a fixed interval.
Arena and event concessions
Multiple small hoods over separate stands rather than one long canopy, all cooking simultaneously for a few hours and then idle. Each stand is a separate system with its own certificate line.
Retail and outlet food service
Kanata Centrum, Tanger Outlets Ottawa and Hazeldean Mall in Stittsville. Shared landlord ductwork is common here, which changes who has to approve the work and who pays for it.
School and residence kitchens
Katimavik, Bridlewood, Glen Cairn, Beaverbrook and Morgan's Grant. Institutional buildings with clear documentation requirements, where the certificate goes into a compliance file rather than a drawer.
What happens on the night
Contain the room
Cook surfaces, prep tables and floors under the hood are covered and taped before anything is opened, so the cleaning does not create a second job for your kitchen staff.
Strip the filters
Every filter comes out, is tagged to its position, and goes to be washed separately. The bank is inspected while it is empty.
Photograph the before
Canopy, trough, plenum and collar, shot with the filters out so the images show the surfaces rather than the filter faces.
Degrease and scrape
Hot degreaser, dwell time, then mechanical scraping across the canopy, gutter, trough, plenum walls and collar throat until the metal is exposed.
Rinse, dry and polish
Interior rinsed and dried, drain path tested, filters reseated in their tagged positions, and the exterior stainless polished so the line looks right for the next shift.
Document and hand over
After photographs, a signed certificate naming every area cleaned and any area not reached with the reason, and the room returned to service.
The duct run above the ceiling and the fan on the roof are covered on the kitchen exhaust cleaning page. On most visits both are done together, because cleaning one without the other leaves grease that will migrate back into the section you just paid for.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a commercial hood cleaning take?
A single-canopy kitchen in normal condition takes three to four hours including setup, cleaning, photographs and reinstating the room. A multi-canopy kitchen of two to four hoods usually runs five to seven hours. A first visit on a system that has gone years without proper service takes longer, sometimes considerably, which is why the walk-through happens before the quote rather than after.
Do you clean the plenum, or just the hood?
The plenum is included on every visit and photographed separately with the filters out. It is the single most commonly skipped part of a hood assembly, so it is worth asking any contractor to show you the images of it. If a quote does not mention the plenum, it is worth confirming in writing that it is in scope.
Will the kitchen be usable the next morning?
Yes. The room is covered before work starts and reinstated before the crew leaves, with surfaces wiped down and filters back in their tagged positions. Overnight visits are scheduled to finish well before the first prep shift arrives.
Do you replace baffle filters?
Filters are inspected on every visit and anything warped, split or missing is written up. Replacements are quoted separately for approval rather than fitted and invoiced afterwards. Sizing is taken from the rails on site, because filter dimensions vary more between hood manufacturers than most kitchens expect.
Can you work around a kitchen that never fully closes?
Usually yes, by cleaning in sections across more than one visit so part of the line stays in service. Hotel and arena kitchens do this routinely. It costs more than a single overnight visit because the setup happens more than once, so it is worth pricing both ways before deciding.