How to choose a hood cleaning company in the GTA

Every hood cleaning company says roughly the same thing: licensed, insured, NFPA 96 compliant. What separates a good vendor from a risky one shows up in five concrete places, not the sales pitch. Use these as your evaluation checklist — whether you're picking a first vendor or auditing the one you already have.

Evaluation criteria checklist.

1. Documentation depth

Does every visit leave you with a dated, photo-documented report you could hand an inspector cold? A verbal "all done" isn't documentation. Ask to see a sample report before signing.

2. Published pricing

A vendor willing to publish a real starting rate, not just "contact us for a quote," is telling you something about how they price. It doesn't mean the cheapest published number wins — it means you can sanity-check what you're being quoted against a public anchor.

3. Bundle scope

Hood cleaning and grease-trap/FOG compliance are two separate obligations under two different rules (NFPA 96 vs. Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 681 / O.Reg 347). Ask directly whether a vendor covers both under one contract or only one side of it — if it's only one, you're still coordinating a second vendor and a second schedule yourself.

4. Frequency sizing by volume

NFPA 96 doesn't set one flat schedule — required frequency scales from monthly (24-hour/high-heat kitchens) to annually (low-volume kitchens) based on cooking volume. A vendor that quotes the same interval regardless of what you actually cook isn't sizing your service to the standard.

5. Verification of insurance

Ask for a current certificate of insurance directly, not a verbal assurance. This is a five-minute ask that protects you if something goes wrong on your roof or in your kitchen.

Questions to ask your current vendor.

• Can you show me last visit's photo-documented report?
• What NFPA 96 frequency tier is my kitchen on, and why?
• Do you also handle grease-trap/FOG compliance, or only hood cleaning?
• Can I see a current certificate of insurance?
• What happens if a structural issue (missing access panel, no hinge kit) turns up mid-service?

If any of these get a vague answer, that's the actual signal — more useful than any marketing claim on either side.

Northfire's method and documentation standard are laid out in full, honestly, including what we don't claim to be. See our standards & method page →