Hood Cleaning Services in Sarnia
Hood Cleaning Services are the scheduled removal of cooking grease from the hood assembly over a commercial kitchen line: the stainless canopy, the filters in its slot, and the plenum hidden behind them. Sarnia Hood Cleaning takes the filters out, strips the canopy and plenum back to bare steel, photographs each surface before and after, and signs a health and safety certificate referencing the published NFPA 96 standard. Your interval comes from what cooks under the hood, whether that is a pizza oven on London Road or a clubhouse grill in Camlachie. Visits start from $585.
What is commercial hood cleaning for restaurants?
Commercial hood cleaning for restaurants is the removal of grease from the parts of the hood your staff cannot reach with a nightly wipe.
A kitchen hood has two jobs. It captures the smoke and vapour rising off your appliances, and it contains that plume until the fan pulls it away. Grease settles on every surface along the way.
The canopy is the steel shell you see. Its face gets wiped by your closing crew. Its inside corners, seams and upper edges do not.
The filters sit in a slot at the back of the canopy and strip grease out of the air before it goes further.
The plenum is the closed space between the filters and the duct opening. Your staff never see it, so it often carries more grease than any other part of the hood. What happens past the plenum is on the kitchen exhaust cleaning page.
What do commercial hood cleaners do for restaurants?
Commercial hood cleaners take the hood apart as far as it goes, clean each piece, put it back and give you a record of what was done.
Filters out first. Every filter comes out of the slot so the plenum is open. The filters go into a hot degreasing soak while the rest of the hood is worked.
Plenum and filter track. The technician scrapes the heavy deposit off the plenum walls and the track the filters sit in, then applies degreaser and rinses to bare metal.
Canopy inside and out. The inside of the canopy gets the same treatment, with attention to the seams, the corners against the wall and the grease trough along the bottom edge.
Filters back in. The clean filters go back into the slot with no gaps.
Proof. Every cleaned surface is photographed before and after, and your certificate lists the date and the parts cleaned.
A hood cleaner does not repair the fan or clean the fryers as part of this service. Those are the exhaust fan repair and deep cleaning services.
Baffle filters vs mesh filters in a Sarnia kitchen hood
Baffle filters. A baffle filter is a set of folded steel blades. The air has to turn sharply to get through, and the heavier grease falls out and drains away. The filter stays open to airflow even on a busy night.
Mesh filters. A mesh filter is a woven pad that traps grease inside it. The more it traps, the less air it passes and the more fuel it holds right above your burners. When a mesh filter loads up, smoke starts rolling out from under the canopy edge.
The walk-through notes which type sits in your slot, because it changes how fast the plenum loads. Whether a damaged filter should be cleaned or swapped out is covered on the kitchen exhaust cleaning page.
Kitchen hood cleaning for wall, island, backshelf and deep canopy hoods
Wall canopy. Fixed to the back wall over a straight line of ranges and fryers, as in most franchise units and care home kitchens. Grease collects in the two back corners.
Island canopy. Hung from the ceiling over an open line, common in banquet kitchens. With no wall to help, the outer edges load first.
Backshelf hood. Low and close to the appliance, built for diners with low ceilings. Its small plenum fills quickly.
Deep canopy over a charbroiler. A pub or burger kitchen near a Highway 402 exit often runs a deeper canopy to catch flare-ups that rise fast and hot. The extra inside surface means extra grease between visits.
Best restaurant hood cleaning schedule in Sarnia for pizza ovens, fryers, charbroilers and clubhouse grills
Restaurant hood cleaning works best on a schedule set by the appliance and its hours, then checked against the plenum on the first visit.
| Pizza oven vs fryer bank vs charbroiler vs clubhouse grill | Where the hood loads first | How the interval is set |
|---|---|---|
| Pizza oven (pizzerias on London Road and Exmouth Street) | The canopy face over the oven door, where cheese and oil vapour meet the cooler air. | A wood-fired oven falls under the monthly interval NFPA 96 publishes for solid-fuel cooking. A gas deck oven is set by volume at the walk-through. |
| Fryer bank (pubs, wing and fish and chip kitchens) | The filters directly above the fryers, from a steady oil mist through every service. | Quarterly where fryers run long hours or around the clock. Semi-annual for moderate volume. |
| Charbroiler (burger, steak and casual dining lines) | The inside of a deep canopy and the plenum, from flare-ups that carry grease high and fast. | Quarterly. NFPA 96 lists charbroiling among its high-volume operations. |
| Clubhouse grill (golf clubs and marina cafes) | Everything at once in summer, then almost nothing from November to March. | Set by the season. A visit before opening day and another after the last event of the year covers most clubhouse kitchens. |
The full list of intervals NFPA 96 publishes by cooking volume is on the NFPA 96 guide. Each kitchen type is covered on the who we serve page.
Where to find hood cleaning services near me in Sarnia
Sarnia Hood Cleaning covers every hood style on one price list across Sarnia and Lambton County.
Hood types cluster by street. Wall canopies fill the franchise units around Lambton Mall. Backshelf hoods sit in the breakfast counters on Christina Street. Clubhouse grills and marina cafes run from Bright's Grove up the Lake Huron shore to Grand Bend. Every covered town is on the areas served page.
How much does commercial hood cleaning cost in Sarnia in 2026?
Commercial hood cleaning in Sarnia costs from $585 per visit for a single-hood kitchen up to ten feet and from $995 per visit for a multi-hood kitchen of two to four canopies. Larger systems are quoted on site after a free walk-through, and the written quote comes back within 24 hours.
Canopy length, canopy count and what cooks underneath move the price. Hoods over solid-fuel appliances are quoted per job. Every visit includes before-and-after photographs, proof of WSIB coverage and liability insurance before work starts, and overnight or between-service scheduling.
Next step: call 226-799-4732 or request a written quote. Tell us how many canopies you run, whether the filters are baffle or mesh, and the main appliance under the hood. The other three services are on the services page.
Hood cleaning services in Sarnia: frequently asked questions
What parts of the hood does a cleaning visit cover?
A hood cleaning visit covers the canopy, the filters, the filter track and the plenum, each photographed before and after. The duct above the hood is a separate service on the kitchen exhaust cleaning page.
How often does a pizzeria with a wood-fired oven need its hood cleaned?
A wood-fired oven counts as solid-fuel cooking, and NFPA 96 publishes a monthly interval for it. A gas deck oven usually runs on a longer interval set by volume.
Can a golf clubhouse skip hood cleaning in the winter?
A clubhouse grill that sits idle all winter adds little grease in those months. Book one visit before the season opens and one after it closes, and adjust if the photographs show heavier loading.
Is washing the filters in the dish machine enough between visits?
A dish machine removes the surface film from a baffle filter and slows the build-up in the plenum. The baked layer inside each fold still needs a hot soak on every scheduled visit.
Does a hood cleaning certificate also cover the duct?
A hood cleaning certificate names only the parts that were cleaned, so a hood-only visit does not cover the duct. If your fire inspector or insurer asks about the duct, book the full system on the kitchen exhaust cleaning page.