A quote for kitchen extraction cleaning usually arrives before the person asking has anything written down. Someone says the hoods are heavy, the ducts are worse, ask for a price, and the supplier answers with a number that may or may not survive first contact with the actual plant. The gap is not the supplier's arithmetic. It is the information the buyer failed to collect. Before a realistic price exists, the following has to be on paper, measured rather than remembered.
Draw the boundary of the job first
The first line on the sheet is what the job includes and what it does not. Kitchen extraction is a chain: canopy and filters, the plenum behind the canopy, horizontal duct runs, risers, the fan housing and impeller, the discharge louvres or stack outside, and the collection trays that catch condensate on the way. Buyers routinely quote "the hood" and mean only the visible canopy; the supplier prices the whole tract or prices only the canopy and neither party notices until the invoice.
Write the boundary as an itemised list, one line per component, each marked in or out. Then mark access to each line separately, because access is what changes the price. A riser that can be reached from a roof is not the same job as a riser running inside a shaft with no inspection door. A fan on an accessible plant deck is not the same job as a fan above a false ceiling that needs panels lifted and a ladder through a dining area.
Measure the tract, do not describe it
Suppliers price by run length and by internal surface area, so both have to be stated rather than estimated in conversation. Record for each duct run: the length in metres between access points, the cross-section or diameter, the material and its finish (galvanised sheet, stainless, lined, painted), the number and position of existing inspection openings, and whether the interior can be seen at all. Note bends, offsets, dampers and any fire damper in the run, since those are the points that get missed and later argued about.
Add the canopy dimensions and the filter type. Filters are a separate item in most quotes: how many, what size, whether they are dishwashable or disposable, and who removes and refits them. If filters are excluded and nobody said so, that is a surprise at the end of the job, not a saving.
A useful habit is a short sketch on grid paper with the runs, lengths and openings labelled, photographed at the same time and sent with the enquiry. A sketch plus photographs answers most of what a supplier would otherwise ask in three rounds of email.
Describe the deposit, not the appearance
"It's greasy" is not a specification. The cost-driving question is what the deposit actually is and how far it has progressed. Note whether the surface carries a soft fresh film from yesterday's service, a built-up amber layer that has been polished by repeated heating, or a hardened carbonised crust with a rough texture. Say which parts carry which condition, since a canopy face can be light while the first metre of duct behind it is heavy.
Then record what the kitchen cooks. A grill and chip fryer line lays down a different deposit from a steaming and braising line, and the difference decides whether chemical dwell, heat, or mechanical work is needed. If a deposit sample can be photographed close up against a coin for scale, send the photograph. Suppliers who clean these systems will tell you plainly that a close photograph changes the accuracy of their answer more than any verbal description.
State the cleaning window in the kitchen's terms
Every extraction job is a race against the next service. Give the supplier the closing time and the reopening time, not "overnight". If the kitchen shuts at 22:00 and the first prep starts at 05:30, write that down, along with which areas can be worked in and which must be cleared and handed back at any point in the night. A crew working a five-hour window with a hard handover point prices differently from a crew with the whole site to themselves.
Record the access route as well: where a crew and their equipment can enter, whether goods lift or service entrance, distance from the entrance to the kitchen, whether the equipment has to cross a dining or retail area, and whether anything has to be covered on the way. Long carries and protected routes are labour, and labour is the majority of the price.
List the utilities the site can actually offer
Most extraction cleaning needs power and water at the point of work, and most sites are worse than buyers assume. Before requesting a quote, walk the route and note: the location and rating of the nearest supply socket and which circuit it is on; whether a tap connection exists near the kitchen or only in a distant utility room; and whether waste water can be discharged lawfully from that point or whether it has to be collected and removed. In older buildings there is often no legal discharge route near the extraction at all, and that changes the method.
This is also where a buyer should be specific with the supplier about the cleaning medium. High-temperature steam with selectable dry and wet modes softens baked-on grease with dwell time and a fraction of the water volume of a hot-water wash, which is what makes it workable in a site with no discharge point. For a fixed unit installed near the extraction, the published detail page for the PowerDe HW02 states 220 V working voltage, 6 kW heating power, 160 degrees C steam temperature, 0.8 MPa vapour pressure, an 80 L SUS304 tank and a tap-water inlet with a 1/2 inch four-point internal-tooth joint. Match those numbers against what your site can offer, and ask the supplier in writing for anything the page does not state, such as working time per tank fill and water consumption per hour. Never assume a socket will carry a machine it was never intended for.
Set the standard of "clean" before the price is agreed
Ask for the pass criteria in the quotation, in words you can check yourself. A specification worth paying for says what will be left bare metal or original coating on which components, what will be treated rather than stripped, and how the result will be demonstrated. For kitchen work, that normally means commercial kitchen steam cleaning stated as an inspection standard: filters bare and free of film, canopy interior free of soft deposit and standing drip, the accessible duct run free of combustible accumulation, fan blades cleaned to a point where balance is not disturbed, and discharge louvres clear.
Ask, in the same enquiry, what the crew will protect and what they will not be responsible for. Seals, insulation, damper linkages, lighting and electrical entries inside the duct are the usual items. A quote that promises everything is not safer; it is usually just vaguer.
Put the paperwork expectations in the enquiry, not after the job
State what you want to receive with the invoice, and price is then compared on the same basis. At minimum: before and after photographs at the same positions, the method and materials used, the time spent on each component, the condition defects noticed but not repaired, and a note of anything found that needs attention on the next visit. Where a fire-safety or hygiene inspection drives the work, say so in the enquiry, because the documentation requirement changes the workload and therefore the price.
Record frequency and what happens between visits
A single deep clean against heavy build-up is a different exercise from a recurring maintenance contract, and the buyer who asks for both gets a far more useful comparison. Tell the supplier how often you expect to repeat it, and what your own kitchen team does between visits, day to day. Frequent light passes on canopy face, filters and trays slow the build-up in the duct behind them, so the annual job stays a maintenance job rather than a restoration job.
| Information to collect | What it changes in the quote |
|---|---|
| Component list marked in or out | Decides whether you are buying a hood clean or a full tract clean |
| Run lengths, cross-sections, access openings | Sets internal surface area, which is the main pricing basis |
| Deposit type with photographs | Decides method, dwell, and whether hand work is required |
| Closing and reopening times | Night work and handover points carry a cost of their own |
| Power, water and discharge available on site | Determines whether the chosen method is even possible there |
| Agreed pass criteria and paperwork | Makes competing quotes comparable instead of just cheaper |
Send it to one supplier as a test before sending it to five
Take the pack to a manufacturer's engineering team before it goes out to tender and ask them to mark what is missing. The team behind PowerDe's customized cleaning equipment solutions will tell you which of your measurements are unusable and which they would ask for, and that feedback costs nothing while the pack is still draft. A supplier who receives a complete pack answers with a method and a time; a supplier who receives nothing answers with a number and hopes.
The practical test of whether you are ready to request a quote is simple. If a competent stranger could walk your kitchen from the service entrance to the extraction with your sheet in hand, find every component on it, and know what utilities they would use at each point, then the quote you get will be the job you pay for. If they would have to ask questions first, collect those answers before you send anything.
