Full-service restaurant kitchen exhaust cleaning acceptance SOP - outsourced hood cleaning is not a signature-and-done job: four acceptance lines (hood, ductwork, ESP collector cells, fire damper), with rework rules and archive requirements locked in

You are the equipment maintenance lead for a full-service restaurant. Produce a Kitchen Exhaust & Grease Control Cleaning Acceptance SOP for use after an outsourced cleaning. Each acceptance item carries four columns: what to check / how to check it / pass standard / what happens on failure.

Timing and preconditions (fixed):
- Conduct after cleaning is complete, equipment is reinstalled, and the fan has been test-run; inspection ports openable, lighting adequate
- The contractor is present for the acceptance; the acceptance sheet requires both signatures

Four acceptance lines, order fixed:
1. Hood plenum line:
- Check: hood interior walls, baffle filters, grease mesh filters
- How: wipe the interior walls and baffles with white paper or a white glove
- Pass: no visible grease transfer; mesh openings visible
2. Ductwork line (the priority - the easiest line to fake):
- Check: every inspection port opened; interior walls of horizontal runs and elbows
- How: visual plus spot wipe from every inspection port, concentrating on the bottom of horizontal runs
- Pass: no ropes of grease on interior walls; any grease rope fails the entire run - verbal "we'll do it next visit for extra" deals are not accepted on the spot
3. Grease control unit line (where an ESP or similar unit is installed):
- Check: whether the collector cells were actually pulled and washed versus rinsed in place; reinstall orientation and wiring; oil buildup inside the cabinet
- How: require the contractor's before/after photos of the pulled cells (with timestamps); verify reinstall orientation on the floor
- Pass: cells visibly clean, orientation correct; no timestamped photos, treat as not pulled
4. Fire damper and fan line:
- Check: fire damper operation, fan impeller grease, test-run noise and vibration
- Pass: damper opens and closes freely by hand; fan runs without abnormal noise

Rework and archiving rules (fixed):
- Any failed line fails the whole acceptance: record the failed item and its location, agree a rework date, and after rework walk all four lines again - no partial re-acceptance of only the failed line
- On pass: cleaning date, scope, inspector, contractor signature, and four-line photos go into the archive; retain for [N] months past the end of the next cleaning cycle
- The cleaning interval is set by your own station's cooking intensity (heavy wok/high-volume grease operations warrant shorter intervals than light-duty lines), written on the cover of the archive - no oral "is it due yet" judgments

Constraints:
- Do not cite specific regulations or penalty standards - intervals and pass criteria are this store's own standards; the SOP governs acceptance actions only
- Do not instruct store staff to clean or disassemble anything - cleaning and disassembly are done by the contractor or the technician only
- Duct sections with too few inspection ports to see into are marked "cannot inspect" - never assumed clean
- No commentary on whether the contractor's method is right or wrong - accept the resulting condition only

Why it is written this way

Exhaust cleaning has the largest information gap of any kitchen outsourcing: the manager watches the hood, the contractor skips the duct. The hood can shine while the horizontal runs and elbows keep every gram of grease - which is exactly where buildup is thickest, closest to open flame, and invisible from outside. Putting ductwork second on the list and naming "the bottom of horizontal runs" isolates the most faked section for its own pass; opening every inspection port is the floor-level action.

The timestamped-photo requirement for collector cells closes the "rinsed in place" shortcut: cells that were never pulled and tank-washed were never cleaned, and once reinstalled you cannot tell from outside. Photos cannot verify workmanship but can verify removal; and when no photos exist, treating the job as not done puts the burden of proof on the party that got paid.

The fire damper gets its own line because cleaning can break it - a damper jammed by careless reassembly is more dangerous than the grease it was cleaned for, because it is the part that must move when fire comes. This line does not ask "is it clean"; it asks "does it still work", a different question that a general "looks clean" impression will bury.

The countersigned archive turns acceptance into an evidence chain: if anything ever happens, you can produce a complete record of on-schedule cleaning, four-line acceptance, and two signatures. That is also why the SOP cites no regulation numbers - it is an operating procedure, not a compliance opinion. Standards you set yourself, with a paper trail behind each one, are the ones that hold up.

Variables