Picture of some of the attendees taken when demonstrating camera use with Monopod
Thanks you to all the area fire inspectors attending the exhaust system seminar in Oceanside, California Wednesday. What a nice area and at least 20 degrees cooler than what I left in Mpls and what I will see this weekend in Dallas, TX. Oceanside is located on the Pacific coast between San Diego and Los Angelus for those not familiar with the area. Also in attendance was a KEC vendor from the Palm Springs area looking into joining IKECA. He has been in the KEC business in both Colorado and now Southern California for over 10 years now. From my discussions with him, his company would be a welcome addition to our organization. Fellow IKECA member, Mario from Air Cleaning Technology, also dropped by. The Deputy Fire Marshal from San Diego also was in attendance and has since requested a half-day seminar for San Diego in the near future. We are planning that as soon as possible. The San Diego seminar may be a chance for us to see other IKECA members at the seminars. I asked the inspectors how many have been involved in having to extinguish or investigate a grease exhaust fire. There were several hands raised, so this was a very informative seminar for all plus with first hand experience, the pictures and protocols for proper inspections were right on point. Good questions were asked. A couple of them deserve more attention in the blog. The first was asking about rooftop areas and inspections. They stated that they really have no way to inspect the rooftop areas when doing their routine inspections. I showed them areas of concern during the seminar with the rooftop areas. I agreed that the roof area does not often tell the whole story about the cleaning or lack of cleaning. We looked at pictures that show many jobs that are shortcut appear to be clean looking down from the roof, but the bottom ½-1/4th where the largest fire dangers is located it often missed with thick old buildup. Unscrupulous companies using poor picture programs count on this and don’t show the lower sections in their on line pictures for the FM’s or inspectors. That means that even though rooftop inspections might not be quite as important as the lower sections of the duct and the horizontal runs in the ceiling areas, they should be done Fires that start on the roof and/or fan areas can go uncontrolled with no fire suppression on the rooftops or in the fan areas. As for the lower sections above the hood, remember that the proper inspection pictures include clear pictures looking up from the hood showing all four sides including the back of the upper filter rail if possible. Another statement questioned how far the inspector really needs to look if there is a hood sticker. I let them know that the hood sticker only means someone was there and actually means very little about the quality of the job done. Once you are familiar with companies, they may be an indication that the job was well done, but only after many previous complete visual inspections of their work. Even then, spot checks are necessary. The minimum standard for NFPA96 requires removal of all grease (combustible material). In a grease majority of the jobs I inspect around the country, that minimum standard t is not done no matter what the hood sticker states. I pointed out how bad things have gotten in a Mpls suburb that used to have one of the toughest and best KEC inspection programs in the country, but no longer inspects. Without the on the job inspections, almost every single horizontal duct we have looked at in the past 2 years in that city have not been getting cleaned. (There are pictures in a previous blog showing this). The jobs were cleaned(??) by several different KEC vendors. The moral of the story is that a fire inspector must have the filters removed upon arrival to the location and look at the inside of the entire system while there. If the inspector cannot climb up into the hood, using the Monopod with a swivel head can easily show most areas. My recommendation is to set up an inexpensive licensing program to monitor the KEC vendors. That way, the inspector has a way to take action when the KEC vendor does not perform. Non-performance will happen at times so be ready for it. Many of the KEC vendors will actually ignore the inspector’s orders counting on the inspector to not not have the time or patience to follow up and take further action. The KEC vendor may also come back and only partially re-clean the system. Again, they are counting on the lack of time for the inspector to follow up. With the advent of digital cameras, once a fire inspector has their own baseline pictures of the system, they can request pictures from the KEC vendor to make sure they are conforming. Be prepared to make them go back and take additional pictures if you are at all unclear at what you are looking at. Simply looking to make sure there is a hood sticker is not adequate for any proper fire inspection program. Actual complete visual inspection is required to help prevent grease fires. The new digital cameras and use of a monopod will help streamlining your inspection process.-
The Greaser..... Don