What Is TR19 Compliance? A Guide for Commercial Kitchen Operators.

The Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) publication TR19® Grease sets out the specification for the management of fire risk arising from grease accumulation within kitchen extract ventilation systems. When a commercial kitchen is in use, grease, oils and carbonised residues are drawn off the cooking line and deposit on the canopy interior, plenum, ductwork and extraction fan. These deposits are highly combustible: a single flash of flame from a wok, grill or salamander can ignite the grease layer inside a duct and spread fire rapidly through ceiling voids and onto the roof. TR19 exists to make sure those deposits are measured, removed and evidenced before they become a fire hazard.

Compliance with TR19 is not a legal statute in itself, but it is the document that fire safety authorities, insurers,Environmental Health Officers and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 all point to when asking whether a Responsible Person has taken reasonable steps to manage fire risk in an extract system. In practice, that means most business insurance policies now require evidence of regular, documented TR19-compliant cleaning as a condition of cover — and a claim can be challenged, or even refused, where that evidence is missing. A genuine TR19 clean is therefore not a splash of degreaser and a certificate: it is a full canopy-to-discharge clean, with measured pre- and post-clean grease deposit thickness readings (the standard target is a post-clean average below 200 microns), photographic evidence of every section, and a dated compliance certificate issued on completion.

How often your system needs cleaning is driven by usage, not by a blanket calendar date. BESA recommends the following intervals as a starting point, assessed and adjusted by your cleaning contractor based on the actual deposit levels found during inspection:

A compliant clean should cover the full system — canopy and filters, plenum chamber, horizontal and vertical duct runs, and the extraction fan including the impeller and housing. Where a duct run cannot be reached, BS-compliant access panels (positioned to the NAAD21 standard) must be cut so the entire length can be cleaned and inspected, with the number and location of any new panels recorded on the post-clean schematic. After the work, you should receive a dated TR19® Grease certificate holding the before and after photographs, the deposit readings at each test point, a system schematic, the engineer’s name and the recommended next inspection date. Keep that record with your fire risk assessment and HACCP documentation: it is the single document an insurer, fire officer or EHO will ask to see.

At Extract Compliance Ltd our engineers are BESA and AEME trained and work to TR19® Grease, TR19® Air and NAAD21 across Chester, Shropshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, North Wales, Manchester and nationwide. If you are unsure when your system was last cleaned, or cannot locate your last certificate, contact us for a free site survey and we will measure your current deposit levels and tell you honestly what is required.