Certificate of Cleaning: What It Includes and Who Needs It

A certificate of performance — often just called the cleaning certificate — is the document a qualified crew issues after cleaning your kitchen exhaust system. It records who cleaned the system, when, to what standard, and what was or wasn't accessible. Alongside the service sticker on your hood, it is your proof of NFPA 96 compliance, and three different parties may ask you to produce it: your fire inspector, your insurance company, and your landlord.

What a proper certificate includes

• The company and technician who performed the work, with contact details
• The date of service and the areas cleaned — hood, filters, duct sections, fan
• The standard worked to — cleaning to bare metal per NFPA 96
• Areas not cleaned or not accessible, stated plainly — for example, a duct section with no access panel — along with recommendations to correct it
• The next recommended service date, based on your cooking volume category

That "areas not accessible" line matters more than owners expect. An honest certificate that flags an unreachable duct section protects you — it shows you hired a proper crew and documents what needs fixing. A certificate that claims everything was cleaned when panels were never opened protects nobody, and inspectors know how to spot the difference.

Who asks for it

1. Fire inspectors. Across Red Deer, Lacombe, Ponoka, Innisfail and the wider region, the certificate is typically the first thing requested during a commercial kitchen inspection. Current certificate, quick visit. No certificate, and the inspection gets much more thorough — see what happens when it goes badly.
2. Insurers. After any kitchen fire, cleaning records are among the adjuster's first requests, and a lapsed schedule can complicate or jeopardize the claim. Increasingly, insurers also want current certificates at policy renewal — before anything has gone wrong.
3. Landlords and franchisors. Commercial leases, especially in shared-wall buildings, often require proof of exhaust cleaning, because your duct fire is the whole building's problem.

The sticker is not the certificate

The hood sticker shows the service date at a glance, and inspectors check it — but it summarizes the certificate rather than replacing it. Keep the full document filed with your insurance papers, and keep the photo record your crew provides, particularly before/after shots of the duct interior and fan.

Keeping certificates current

Frequency follows cooking volume — monthly for solid fuel, quarterly for high-volume, semi-annual for moderate, annual for low, per our frequency guide. The simplest system is a recall interval with your cleaning partner so the next visit books itself before the current certificate ages out. This site can connect you with a vetted Central Alberta partner who issues proper documentation after every visit — call or submit the form, answered 24/7.