How to Choose an IKECA-Certified Hood Cleaning Company

California does not license hood cleaners directly. That means anyone with a pressure washer and a Craigslist ad can print 'commercial hood cleaning' on a business card. Here is how to tell a qualified vendor from a liability waiting to happen — and what to ask before you ever hand over a purchase order.

Real certifications to look for

Three of these are technical certifications carried by the technicians and the company. Two are basic safety and financial qualifications. All five should be on a vendor's first-page marketing material; if you cannot find them, that itself is a signal.

• IKECA CECS — Certified Exhaust Cleaning Specialist, issued by the International Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning Association. The industry's primary technician certification.
• IKECA CESI — Certified Exhaust System Inspector, the inspection counterpart, required for any vendor doing third-party inspections or pre-purchase property surveys.
• Manufacturer training for the cleaning chemistry being used (PowerKlean, ChemMasters, etc.) — proves the techs were trained on the actual product they spray on your equipment.
• OSHA 10 or 30 for confined-space and rooftop work — required for any technician working on a roof or inside a duct.
• Active general-liability insurance with at least $1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate. Workers' comp in California is non-negotiable.

Questions worth asking on the phone

Before booking, ask the company three questions. The answers separate professionals from the rest, and you can do it in a five-minute call.

1. Will the report flag inaccessible areas?

The right answer is yes, every time, with photos. A vendor who promises a 'clean' report no matter what is the vendor who gets your claim denied. Flagging inaccessible areas does not hurt the vendor — it protects them as much as it protects you. A vendor who refuses to flag them is one who has been sued before and learned the wrong lesson.

2. Do you clean to bare metal, or just the filters and the inside of the hood?

NFPA 96 requires the entire exhaust system — hood, filters, plenum, duct, and fan — to be cleaned to bare metal at every service. Filter-only cleaning or 'hood polish' is a different product and is not NFPA 96 compliant, even if the vendor calls it 'cleaning.'

Ask specifically: do you remove the fan from the curb? Do you scrape the plenum? Do you pull the access panels and clean the horizontal duct run? If the answer is anything other than yes to all three, you are buying cosmetic cleaning, not compliance cleaning.

3. What does your service report include?

You want timestamped before-and-after photos at every major component (hood interior, filters, plenum, duct access panels, fan, roof curb), the technician's name and certification number, an access-panel inventory, a grease-thickness measurement at the worst point of the duct, and a next-service date based on observed buildup. Anything less is not enough to hand to a fire marshal or an insurance adjuster.

Red flags

The patterns are remarkably consistent. Any one of these on its own is a yellow flag; two or more is a no:

• Door-to-door pricing — legitimate vendors do not cold-call kitchens
• No written quote, or a quote that does not specify what is being cleaned
• Cash-only, or insistence on payment before the report is delivered
• Refusal to provide an insurance certificate naming you as the certificate holder
• Refusal to clean during your closed hours (legitimate work is almost always done overnight)
• Vague answers about who actually does the work — subcontracting is not inherently bad, but it should be disclosed
• Promises of a clean report 'guaranteed' regardless of what the inspector finds

What a fair price looks like in 2026

Bay Area pricing for a single-hood, single-fan restaurant with quarterly service runs roughly $400–$700 per cleaning depending on hood length, duct complexity, and rooftop access. Solid-fuel and 24-hour operations run 30–50% higher. Multi-hood properties typically see a per-hood discount.

If a quote comes in at half the going rate, the vendor is either skipping work (filters and hood front only, no duct or fan) or planning to underpay an uninsured crew. Both end the same way for the operator — at the next inspection.

The one-call test

Call the vendor, ask the three questions above, and ask for a sample service report from another Bay Area client (names redacted). A vendor who can email you a sample report within an hour is one who produces them routinely. A vendor who has to 'check with the office' and never gets back to you is one whose reports are not worth handing to your fire marshal.

Hood cleaning is one of the few line items where the cheapest bid almost always costs more in the end. Spend the extra hour on the front of the relationship and you will not spend a week dealing with a failed inspection.