1. Draw the pipework before you list it
Start with a simple layout of the kitchen showing every run that the checklist will cover: extract ducts and their brackets, water supply and hot-water pipework, gas pipework and its shut-off valves, condensate return, and the supports and hangers that hold all of it up. Label each run where it can be reached, at the wall penetration or the first elbow, so the sheet and the ceiling agree with each other. Without that map, a checklist line reading "pipework — monthly" gets ticked against whatever the person on the ladder happened to reach.
On the drawing, mark each run as one of three access grades: reachable from the floor, reachable from a step or ladder with the cook line stopped, or reachable only through a ceiling hatch or by removing a panel. The access grade decides the frequency, the crew size, and whether the job belongs to the kitchen team or to a contractor.
2. Separate the pipe from what is attached to it
A surface list that names only pipe misses the parts that hold most of the grease. Under each run, write the fittings that come with it: flanges and bolted joints, dampers and their spindles, flexible connectors, brackets, cable trays and conduits clipped to the pipework, insulation jackets and their cladding, and the insulation tape overlaps where grime collects along the seam. Cladding seams, horizontal supports and the top face of any horizontal pipe are where a film becomes a drip. Those four items should be named lines on the sheet, not folded into "pipe".
3. State the deposit, not just the surface
Two pipes in the same kitchen fail in different ways. Extract pipework carries a sticky grease film that polymerises into a hard varnish. Hot-water and condensate pipework carries a lighter oily film mixed with dust and, if the insulation is damaged, a damp patch behind the cladding. Gas pipework must never be cleaned with anything that leaves residue on the joints or attacks the pipework or its fittings. The checklist should say which deposit is expected on each run, because that answer drives the method and it is what tells a supervisor whether the work has actually been done.
4. Give each run a method and a mode
Fresh grease responds to detergent and warm water. A varnished film that has been cooked onto a duct or a support does not, and scrubbing it by hand at height is slow, uneven and hard on the crew. For that class of deposit, central kitchen degreasing with hot water and high-temperature steam is the practical route, because heat softens the polymerised layer before pressure moves it off the surface. Where the checklist specifies a machine, say which mode does which part of the job: on a dry and wet steam cleaner such as the PowerDe HW02, the drier mode puts heat into a baked-on film, and the wetter mode acts as a rinse once the film has released.
Then write three numbers against the two worst runs on each route: how far the nozzle stands from the surface, how long it dwells on the deposit, and how many passes are needed. Those three details are what allow a second shift, or a weekend contractor, to repeat the result. They are also what let you compare one cleaning visit with the next.
Note what must not be washed. Electrical containment, junction boxes, damper actuators, sensors and any terminal enclosure should be wiped around, never sprayed. Damaged insulation that has taken water behind the cladding should be recorded for repair, because steam onto wet insulation will not clean it and will spread the problem. Anything with a manufacturer's written warning against water washing goes on the sheet as wipe-only, with the warning attached.
5. Record the water route and what is below the pipe
Cleaning overhead pipework produces dirty run-off, and the checklist has to say where it goes. Greasy water from a duct clean belongs in the site's waste route through the grease interceptor, not in a prep sink or a floor drain that feeds it there. State who checks the interceptor and how often it is emptied; a blocked interceptor turns a compliant clean into a flooded kitchen.
Cover what sits beneath the run before anybody goes up: open food, dry goods, packaging, chemicals, and the cooking appliances below the duct line. Sign off the area so nobody walks under a live wand. If the kitchen has no drain or wash point near the pipe runs, put that constraint on the sheet and let it decide the equipment: a fixed unit plumbed to a tap supply suits a kitchen with a permanent wash point, while a machine from the Cleaning Equipment Series suits a site where several servery areas share one cleaning crew and the water has to be carried.
6. Turn the sheet into a team agreement
A checklist works when every line has an owner, a duration and a time window. Put the ladder work outside service hours, name two people for any run that needs both hands free, and give a realistic duration; an unclaimed forty-minute job at height will not be done on a Friday. A line reading "two people, thirty minutes, after the last service, extract run A to the kitchen boundary" has a chance of surviving the week.
Split the frequency into three bands. A walk-past check, done from the floor or a step, looks for drips, fresh streaking and damaged cladding. A scheduled clean handles the named runs on a stated cycle. A deep clean, usually with a contractor, covers duct interiors and anything behind a hatch. Write the trigger for pulling a run forward — visible drip, sticky film on a support, a smoke or fire concern on the extract route — so the schedule is adjusted rather than ignored.
Because extract pipework carries grease, deep grease deposits on cooking equipment and extract routes are a fire issue as much as a hygiene one. Keep the completed sheets where a fire risk assessor or an environmental health officer can be shown them, together with interceptor emptying records and the date of the last duct clean. The record is worth as much as the clean.
7. Acceptance checks the crew can settle in seconds
"Clean" cannot be enforced from a checklist. Write checks that need no discussion: no visible drip or fresh streak along a joint; a support and its bracket free of a tacky film; cladding intact with no damp patch behind it; no run-off pooling on equipment or on the floor beneath the run; no detergent residue left on any surface that touches food; and the area returned with covers removed and nothing left on the pipework. Add one line for defects found during the clean — damaged cladding, a loose hanger, corrosion at a bracket — each with a raised-work reference, so the clean closes out problems rather than uncovering them silently.
8. Look after the machine the checklist depends on
A checklist that relies on a steam machine has to say who looks after that machine. Record the service interval, the spares to hold — seals, nozzles, hoses, brushes — and who to call when a unit stops heating. The PowerDe HW02 steam cleaner product page describes leakage, short-circuit, high-temperature, high-voltage, water-shortage and high-voltage-explosion protections; the crew should know those exist and also that a machine tripping one of them has to be reported rather than reset repeatedly during a shift. Where the water supply is hard, scale collects inside a heater and output falls long before the unit fails, so write the descaling routine and its owner into the same document.
9. Review the checklist against the week you actually had
Set a review date, then walk the pipework with the signed sheets in hand. If a run keeps slipping, the frequency or the duration is wrong and the fix belongs in the document. If a surface still needs heavy scrubbing after the scheduled method, that is a finding about the method, not about the crew. If the ladder is the reason work is skipped, change the access — a platform, a longer wand, or a shorter scheduled section per visit.
Where the layout is awkward — a long servery run, a duct crossing a live cook line, a shared kitchen with several operators — a checklist written around the site beats a downloaded template. Shenzhen PowerDe Automation Precision Equipment publishes parameters for each machine in the Cleaning Equipment Series, and customized steam cleaning equipment can be specified against your pipe routes, access limits and duty cycle. Send the pipework layout, the access grades and photographs of the worst deposits to the contact page, and ask for a method and a configuration matched to that kitchen rather than a catalogue page.
