Food Truck Hood Cleaning and NFPA 96 Compliance in Alberta

If you cook with grease in a mobile kitchen, your hood and exhaust are covered by the same rules as a brick-and-mortar restaurant. The Alberta Fire Code adopts NFPA 96 for commercial cooking equipment, and nothing in it exempts a kitchen because it has wheels. Most food truck operators in Red Deer and Central Alberta find this out the hard way — at a fire inspection, an insurance renewal, or a festival application that asks for a dated cleaning certificate.

Why a small hood gets dirty fast

A food truck hood is short, the duct run is often under two metres, and the fan sits right above the cookline. That sounds safer than a 12-metre rooftop run, but it is not. Grease-laden vapour has almost no distance to cool and condense, so it deposits heavily in the filters and the first bend. Add a deep fryer or a flat-top running eight hours at Westerner Days or a Sylvan Lake weekend, and buildup that would take a diner three months happens in a few weeks. Solid-fuel trucks — wood-fired pizza especially — need attention far more often than that.

Fire suppression is a separate service

Your wet chemical suppression system over the cookline is inspected and tagged on its own schedule, typically every six months, by a certified fire protection contractor. Hood cleaning does not renew that tag, and a suppression tag does not prove the exhaust was cleaned. Festivals and fire inspectors often want both. Nozzles must also be recapped and fusible links replaced on schedule — a cleaner should protect the nozzles during the wash, not just spray around them.

Scheduling a kitchen that moves

The technician comes to the truck, not the other way around. Most Central Alberta operators book service at their commissary bay, home lot, or storage yard on an off day. Between November and March, a heated indoor bay matters — degreaser and rinse water do not behave at −25°C, and you do not want standing water freezing in a duct.

Documentation you will actually be asked for

• Dated service report listing the truck, the areas cleaned, and anything left inaccessible
• Technician name and company
• Before and after photos of the filters, plenum, and fan
• A service sticker inside the hood with the date and next due date

Keep a PDF on your phone. Market and festival coordinators ask for it more often every season.

Typical Alberta pricing

Most food truck hood and exhaust cleans in this area run about $250–$450 depending on grease load, fan access, and solid-fuel equipment. That is well below a full restaurant hood cleaning. See how often you are required to book on our NFPA 96 frequency guide, or check general Alberta pricing.

How this site works: we are an independent referral service, not a cleaning company. Calls are connected with one vetted local hood cleaning contractor serving Red Deer and Central Alberta. They quote you directly and do the work.