Range Hood & Filter Cleaning Frequency Guide

How Often Should You Clean a Commercial Range Hood? Wipe the external hood daily, degrease baffle filters at least weekly, and book a licensed specialist to clean the ducting and fan every 3 to 6 months. High-volume frying and charcoal cooking push those intervals shorter. Range hood cleaning frequency is not a fixed number set by the Food Standards Code, but it is a hygiene and fire-safety obligation that every commercial kitchen in Australia must manage and document. Grease is the reason this matters. Every time you fry, grill or char, airborne fat is drawn up through the canopy, caught by the baffle filters, and deposited along the ducting. Left to build up, that grease becomes fuel. Kitchen exhaust fires are one of the most common and most destructive fire events in hospitality, and insurers routinely make documented exhaust cleaning a condition of cover. Why Range Hood Cleanliness Is Critical A clean exhaust system does three jobs at once. It removes a serious fire hazard, it keeps the kitchen air breathable for your team, and it stops grease dripping back onto food, benches and equipment below. A neglected hood fails all three. Grease that condenses on the canopy edge can drip into open food, which turns a maintenance problem into a direct food-safety hazard. Australian Standard AS 1851 covers the routine servicing of fire-protection systems, including kitchen exhaust hoods fitted with fire suppression. While the Standard sets inspection and servicing expectations for the suppression equipment, the day-to-day cleanliness of the canopy, filters and ducting sits with the operator. Councils and environmental health officers (EHOs) will note visible grease build-up during inspections because it signals a wider breakdown in cleaning discipline. Daily and Weekly Cleaning Routines Most of the work is simple and can be built into your normal close-down. A consistent routine keeps grease from ever reaching the point where it becomes dangerous or expensive to remove. Daily: Wipe external hood surfaces, edges and the underside of the canopy with a hot detergent solution while the metal is still warm — grease lifts far more easily. Daily: Empty and wipe grease cups or drip trays before they overflow. Weekly: Remove baffle filters and degrease them in a commercial dishwasher or through the three-sink method. Let them drain and dry before refitting. Weekly: Inspect drip channels and the internal canopy for build-up you cannot reach with a daily wipe. Monthly: Check that filters still seat correctly and are not warped, which lets grease bypass them into the duct. Baffle filters are designed to be cleaned, not discarded. If a filter is bent, corroded or missing, replace it — a gap in the filter bank sends grease straight into the ducting and multiplies your fire risk. How Do You Clean Baffle Filters Properly? Baffle filters trap grease by forcing air to change direction. Clean them with the following steps. Turn off the exhaust fan and let the filters cool if the kitchen was in service. Slide each filter out by the handle and take it to your wash area. Soak in hot water with a degreasing detergent to loosen baked-on fat. Run through the dishwasher, or scrub in the wash sink, rinse, and sanitise. Stand filters on edge to drain and air-dry fully before refitting. Because filter cleaning is part of your cleaning system, it belongs on the same verification trail as bench and equipment cleaning. Our cleaning schedule tools let you assign the task, capture a photo, and record who signed it off. Quarterly Specialist Duct and Fan Cleaning The parts you cannot see are where fires start. Ducting, fan blades, plenum chambers and roof terminations accumulate grease that no daily wipe can reach. Engage a licensed exhaust cleaning specialist at least every 3 to 6 months, and more often — monthly to quarterly — for kitchens running heavy frying, wok cooking or charcoal grills. A professional clean typically covers the full length of accessible ducting, the extraction fan, and the discharge point on the roof. The specialist should leave you a dated certificate and, ideally, before-and-after photos and a cleanliness measurement. That certificate is what your insurer and council will ask to see. Records, Compliance and Insurance Cleaning you cannot prove is cleaning that did not happen, as far as an inspector or insurer is concerned. Keep every specialist certificate, note the date and the next due date, and store daily and weekly sign-offs alongside them. Store dated certificates from your exhaust cleaning contractor. Log the schedule for daily, weekly and specialist tasks so nothing is missed. Record who completed each clean and attach photo evidence where possible. Produce records on demand for your insurer, council or EHO. Building this into your wider compliance system means exhaust cleaning is never the task that quietly lapses. See how a structured approach works across a whole venue in our multi-venue compliance overview, and browse practical food-safety explainers in the guides library . What Makes Grease Build Up So Quickly? Understanding why grease accumulates helps you set the right cleaning frequency for your kitchen rather than copying a generic schedule. Grease load depends on your cooking style. Deep frying, wok cooking, char grilling and flat-top griddle work all release large volumes of aerosolised fat, so a busy fry shop or Asian kitchen produces far more grease than a cafe running mostly toasted sandwiches and coffee. The more fat in the air, the faster your filters saturate and the sooner grease reaches the ducting. Volume matters too. A venue serving 400 covers a night loads its exhaust far harder than one serving 80. Cheaper mesh filters also let more grease through than properly seated baffle filters, which is one reason baffle filters are the commercial standard. If you notice filters glossy with grease within two or three days, or grease beginning to drip from the canopy edge, treat that a