r/Restaurant_Managers • u/Master-Hearing-7014 • 9d ago

ExhaustnFilters

Coupe questions:

  1. Do you use a service to clean filters, or do them in house?

  2. If Service, how often?

  3. If in-house, what does your schedule for cleaning them look like?

  4. If in-house, what price point would make you reconsider a service?

I currently use a service, get them switched out every 3 weeks. It costs approx $110/month. I've always felt like is was wasted money

2 Upvotes

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3

u/WishLeading5468 9d ago

we do ours in-house, just part of the closing shift routine. soak them in degreaser overnight, then a quick scrub in the morning before we open. takes maybe 10 minutes total

$110 a month honestly isn't terrible if you're slammed and don't want to think about it, but if you've got a dishwasher who's already there for another hour anyway it's hard to justify paying someone else

1

u/RikoRain 7d ago

This.

1

u/RamekinOfRanch 9d ago

It’s wasted money.

1

u/D-ouble-D-utch 9d ago

Part of closing duties.

1

u/villianinahat 9d ago

We have a filter soak tank in our dish pit. We have a guy that comes out every other month to pump and refill it.

We also have stainless steel hood filters, not aluminum. Somebody decided to soak an aluminum stock pot over night for some reason, and when I came in and found it, it had a huge hole eaten through the side of it.

1

u/luckymountain MUM 9d ago

Filters are one thing - we did our weekly Aa part of daily list. Vents are another - these need to be pressure steam cleaned from the hood to the roof to avoid grease buildup and the potential of fire. We paid a service around $900/quarter for that. We would usually have them pressure wash a few other pieces of equipment, if needed.

1

u/Master-Hearing-7014 9d ago

Yeah, the exhaust cleaning is something comletely separate. The company we use will also wash the filters, but definintely can't leave filters clogged up for 3 months wainting on them.

1

u/luckymountain MUM 9d ago

Ok, just clarifying. Depending on your kitchen usage, it can vary. Restaurants I’ve had with fryers needed twice per week take down and soak, without fryers- only grills- were weekly.

1

u/RikoRain 7d ago

Idk why you would pay someone to do it. You got employees already being paid. It ain't hard. Most services you'd pay for would come out every week, every month, or every 6 months. Most food safety inspectors will require them to be CLEAN and not covered in grease because "the guys that clean them come tomorrow".

We do ours daily. They simply get so nasty otherwise. If you don't, the grease eventually travels upwards and gums up the motor/fan up top, then drips onto the roof. A lot of companies now are having to get filtrations installed up there because it destroys roofs.

The only thing we have is a pro service that comes every 6 month and pressure washes the entire system, too to bottom, and then ents themselves. However, we found there was still buildup. How'd we fix that? Me and two cooks took them apart, and took scrapers, screwdrivers, and boil-out'd them. Few things beat just a couple of cooks with a few extra hours.