A quote for cleaning fryers, griddles, grills and the extraction path above them usually fails before the machine arrives. The buyer sends a model number, the supplier returns a price, and the installation later reveals a kitchen with no drain where the work needs to happen, an outlet on a shared circuit, and a hood that nobody agreed who was allowed to open. The information below is what makes a quotation comparable instead of a guess.
Start with the equipment, not with the cleaning job
List every unit in the cooking line by category, and keep the categories separate. A deep-fat fryer, a griddle, a char-broiler, a tilting kettle, a convection oven and the hood, filters, ducts and fan above them are not one cleaning task. Record for each unit: what it is made of (enameled steel, stainless, chrome-plated, painted panels, gasketed joints), whether it has an electrical control panel, a thermostat probe, a gas train, a high-limit switch, or an oil drain that feeds a floor channel, and whether the unit is fixed to the floor or stands on legs that can be moved. A supplier can only judge access, liquid volume and method when the surfaces and the sensitive parts are named.
Describe the soil as it is, not as a label
"Grease" covers three different problems on cooking equipment. A fresh oil film on a splashback wipes off. Polymerised oil that has been heated past its smoke point many times has hardened into a varnish that does not respond to a cloth. Carbonised debris in a fryer well, in the crumb trough and on a flue surface is a different material again. Send dated photographs taken at working distance and one close-up per problem area, and say how long the deposit has been there and what was tried on it before, including any caustic product, because a chemical residue already on the surface changes what a thermal method will do. This is also how the buyer and the supplier end up arguing about the same evidence.
State what may not be sprayed and who signs that list
Every cleaning method that uses liquid needs a written exclusion list, and on a kitchen that list is long: burner and gas-valve assemblies, igniters, electrical enclosures and terminal boxes, thermostats and probes, motor bearings and fan wheels, bearing and belt drives, light fittings, door gaskets, insulation on handle grips, and any control panel whose manufacturer's instructions do not permit wet cleaning. Write the list before asking for a price, and name the person who signs it, because that list, not the machine specification, decides which parts of the job are in scope. A quotation that does not mention excluded components has not answered the question.
Give the utility survey, not the kitchen floor plan
A kitchen's cleaning limits are set by services, and the supplier needs the same facts the electrician and plumber would ask for: the supply at the point where the machine will stand (phase, voltage, frequency, the circuit protection in place, and the cable route to that point, kept clear of a hot production line); where the water comes from and what fitting it uses; how much floor area can be taken for the machine and its hoses without blocking a service aisle; where run-off goes, and whether it reaches a grease interceptor rather than a storm drain; the door widths and any steps between the store room and the cooking line; and the hours when the kitchen can actually be stopped, including whether frying oil must be cooled and drained first. If the kitchen has no drain in the work area, say so at the start; it removes whole methods from the options and the quotation should reflect that.
Run one self-baseline trial with the parameters frozen
The cheapest way to make a quotation honest is to do one small job yourself and keep the settings fixed. Choose the two dirtiest units and one hood section, one operator, one method, and record for every zone: the mode used, the distance the tool is held from the surface, the travel speed, the number of passes and the dwell time. Then measure what your own site costs you: elapsed minutes per zone, how many times the machine had to be refilled or allowed to recover, walking distance to the water point, drying time before the unit is safe to return to service, and how many zones needed a second pass. Attach those numbers to the enquiry. Against a supplier's rated figures they become a comparison; alone they are only anecdote. Where a fixed unit is under consideration, the published PowerDe page for the PowerDe HW02 steam cleaner gives the installation inputs a kitchen can check: 220 V working voltage, 6 kW heating power, an 80 L SUS304 tank, a tap-water inlet with a half-inch four-point internal-tooth fitting, and a footprint of 1,200 x 800 x 1,200 mm including handles. Those figures describe what the machine needs and occupies. They are not a statement that any particular fryer, hood or finish in your kitchen can be cleaned, and a quotation should not be accepted as if it were.
Ask for the quotation in a form you can compare
Send the surface list, the photographs, the exclusion list, the utility findings and the trial timings, then ask each supplier to answer the same headings: what method they propose for each surface group, what they exclude, the services the machine requires, the consumables and their cost, the training the crew receives, the spare-parts and response terms, and what the supplier needs from the buyer before work starts. Two quotations written in different formats are not comparable; two quotations answering the same eight headings are. Treat a supplier who asks only for a floor area as one who has not read the job.
Where a standard unit does not fit the kitchen
Many kitchens cannot take a standard configuration: the hood cannot be reached from a legal standing position, the duct access hatch is smaller than the wand, the aisle width rules out the machine's footprint, or the work has to move between two buildings with no fixed water point. That is a specification question rather than a catalogue question. PowerDe lists commercial steam cleaning equipment as a business direction and, where the site does not fit a standard build, customized cleaning equipment for kitchens with their own constraints, so the enquiry should carry the constraint itself, not a request for a model number. What a category page can tell you is the direction of the business; what your own trial tells you is whether the method works on your deposit.
Send the constraint page, not a model number
One page is enough to start a serious quotation: the cooking-line inventory with materials, the dated photographs, the signed exclusion list, the utility findings (supply, water fitting, drain and interceptor, door widths, available hours), the frozen trial parameters and the four timing measures. If a kitchen is planning a recurring programme rather than a single job, the same page is the basis for a work instruction the crew can follow after the supplier has gone. Send it through the contact page with the photographs attached, and hold every answer to the headings above. A quotation you can compare is worth more than a lower price you cannot.
