Accommodation and food services consistently rank among the key employment sectors in Clarence Valley, alongside health, retail, and agriculture. Cafes, pub kitchens, restaurants, and catering businesses spread across the valley all fall under the same NSW fire safety and food compliance framework as their metropolitan counterparts. That framework tightened in 2025. NSW passed regulatory amendments requiring building owners in covered buildings to maintain essential fire safety measures in line with AS 1851-2012 from 13 February 2026, and for Grafton operators whose exhaust systems are listed as essential fire safety measures on their building’s Fire Safety Schedule, the question is no longer whether exhaust cleaning is required; it is whether what they are currently doing actually meets the standard.
Why Exhaust Cleaning Is Not the Same as General Kitchen Cleaning?
This is an important point with practical significance. The general kitchen cleaning process is concerned with every area within the kitchen where staff can reach and clean during regular working hours. The commercial exhaust cleaning Grafton process will cover the internal pathway of the extracted air starting from the cooking surface to the exhaust system ducts, which include inaccessible parts of the ducting.
In cases where AS 1851 is applicable, the process should be performed by a competent person, i.e., a specialist exhaust contractor, but not a general cleaning company. The competent person in this case refers to the individual who can evaluate the grease build-up in all parts of the system, access the internal part of the duct at various levels, detect any defects in the process and generate the maintenance report, which is required to be kept for seven years as per NSW regulations.
The Most Common Problems Found in Commercial Kitchen Exhaust Systems
Exhaust systems that have not received specialist attention tend to develop the same set of problems over time:
- Filters saturated with embedded grease rather than surface residue, often because cleaning has been limited to a rinse.
- Grease hardened in duct bends and horizontal sections, where run-off has dried and carbonised into a layer that standard cleaning equipment cannot reach.
- Fan blades carrying solidified grease that reduces airflow capacity and creates mechanical imbalance in the rotating assembly.
- Access panels that have been sealed or painted over during fitout or renovation, making proper duct inspection impossible without remediation work.
- Discharge points distributing grease droplets onto the roof surface, which can create a council complaint from neighbouring premises and a secondary fire risk.
Each of these problems is preventable with consistent specialist maintenance. Each one becomes progressively harder and more expensive to address the longer it develops unchecked.
What the NSW Changes Mean for Grafton Operators Specifically?
In terms of Grafton kitchens for which exhaust systems have been deemed critical in the building Fire Safety Schedule, the AS 1851 maintenance requirements now carry regulatory force. This means maintaining seven years’ worth of maintenance records on-site and complying with these requirements in the Annual Fire Safety Statement provided to Clarence Valley Council and Fire and Rescue NSW.
All food premises are required to register with Clarence Valley Council and undergo regular inspections by Environmental Health Officers. Fire and Rescue NSW has the right to give a fire safety order in relation to an exhaust system when it is identified as having grease hazards. These orders have the ability to make rectification work mandatory before any further use of the premises. In its restaurant fire safety guidelines, Fire and Rescue NSW identifies the most commonly occurring fires in food premises as the fires caused by the ignition of fatty residue in rangehoods and ducting. It also recommends routine cleaning and inspection of kitchen rangehoods, ducting, and grease fans.
Building a Practical Exhaust Cleaning Plan
It needs to begin with a complete system audit conducted by a specialist rather than a quote provided simply based on kitchen size. Conducting an inspection to assess the condition of ductwork, filters, fan housings, access points and discharge arrangements, the specialist contractor will then provide a practical cleaning schedule based on the specific cooking profile of the kitchen. According to AIRAH 2022 Best Practice Guide, this cleaning schedule needs to be determined based on the cooking style and number of operating hours and observed amount of grease accumulation, not the calendar date.
All of the service reports need to be kept in one compliance file and readily available upon request. This compliance file is evidence of good management. And given the current regulatory regime, it is non-negotiable.
