St Louis

It is Thursday night and my staff and I have all arrived in St Louis for the IKECA technical seminars. I plan of presenting one on personal responsibility for KEC's at 11AM on Saturday so please find your way down there! I hope to see you all there. It is at the Hotel Lumiere at 999 N. 2nd St in St. Louis.  Lots of pictures of course and I want to drive home the point on the expectations and responsibilities of a KEC under NFPA96, IKECA, and Enviromatic standards. Inaccessible areas and not removing ALL of the grease and carbon are NOT OPTIONS IN MY BOOK!!!!   There was another grease fire in Texas at a steakhouse(well know national chain). The horizontal grease duct caught fire due to excessive and old grease buildup. The KEC(kitchen exhaust cleaner) contractor was also a local fire fighter. He closed his business after the fire. There was no access into the horizontal and it was completely hidden. (he did not use a camera to check it out) He simply told the customer he knew it was clean because clean water was pouring out while power washing the system from the roof "after a while". UNREAL!!  This is a huge misconception and it is a shame it took a fire for everyone to figure it out. The investigation found extreme and old grease buildup throughout the horizontal ductwork except for a small clean stream in the middle of the bottom of the duct. WOW!! At least the new ductwork after the re-construction are all straight verticals. Take care and see y'all in St Louie!!