Let face it; your kitchen is easily the most important area of your business. One equipment failure or even worse a fire can shut down your business for weeks and cost you thousands of dollars. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct weekly or monthly maintenance on your kitchen’s commercial equipment in order to achieve optimal production and ensure the safety of your guest and employees. The following are the top four maintenance procedures every commercial kitchen owner should know.

Maintenance on Your Vents and Air Ducts

Air vents and ducts provide your customers with a pleasant smelling area to dine-in while keeping your employees safe from dangerous gasses and smoke from the ovens. Although their primary job is to remove smoke and bad smells, they also take in other things such as grease and other cooking debris. This over time will begin to start moving its way up to your air ducts, thus increasing the possibilities of starting a fire. Air Vents within a restaurant should be cleaned at least once every six months.

Fire Suppression System

Although not directly connected to any of your commercial equipment, we can agree that a fire suppression system would no doubt help save not only your equipment but potentially the lives of others. Therefore, it is paramount that your fire suppression system is properly looked over by a professional at least once every six months.

Deep Fryer Inspection

A deep fryer is, no doubt one of the greatest fire hazards in any restaurant. Most owners tend to neglect the cleaning of their fryer due to the amount of gunk built up around the sides of the fryer but fail to understand that the condition of the fryer is directly connected to the number of times it’s cleaned. Therefore, it’s very important to have properly trained employees clean your fryer whenever possible as an improper maintaining of the equipment can be potentially dangerous to your employees and customers.

Drain Lines & Lime Build-up

Most commercial kitchen equipment rely on the use of water in some way. Therefore, your equipment is certainly prone to lime scale buildup. One of your goals as an owner is to prolong the life of your equipment-right? This is why it is important to clean and de-lime your equipment as much as possible, along with making sure that your water pipes are not beginning to be clogged up by debris. Consider adding these two cleaning services to your monthly maintenance checkup.

It is well known that most fires that occur within a restaurant are related to the kitchen. This is why it is imperative that maintenance is at the top of the list for any business owner as it could potentially save money and lives. Although these aren’t’ all the things you should properly maintain, things such as Refrigeration Vessel Inspections, floor maintenance and other parts of the kitchen should be also taken into account.