Note recently sent to Don(slightly edited to protect the guilty): "My current company just cancelled on me after I looked at 10 of their last jobs and ordered them re-cleaned. They do other chains to, and the sad thing is the owner kept arguing with me because their techs sent pictures showing it as clean (just a picture of the hood and outside of the bell housing). He refused to believe me while I was standing on the roof sending him pictures of all the buildup and missed areas throughout the systems, in the fan, and fan blades." - FMDon's response: I have heard almost all the BS excuses. I am thinking of making a numbered list to save time when these type of companies call when either your or I fail the jobs that are not cleaned properly. Just pick the excuse number. 1) We did our best, 2) There was not enough time, 3) The camera did not work, 4) There was only nonflammable grease and carbon left, 5) It was too dirty to start with, we will work on it a little at a time(biggest lie in the industry) 6) Crew was sick, 7) Equipment broke down, 8) We do not have it bid for this much time, 9) It won't come off 10) We got most of it and we don't think it is a danger any more, 11) The pervious company did not do a good job, 12) My pictures from my workers show it clean!! 13) Why do we need more than 2(3,4,5- fill in the blank) pictures? 14) How clean is clean? It looks pretty good compared to before. 15) It is cleaned down to less than 2000 microns(NFPA96 states allGrease removed to less than 2 microns!) 16) We can't reach that high up 17) Our contract said to clean as far as we could by hand only 18) Our contract states hood cleaning, nothing about the ducts 19) There are inaccessible areas (The old get out of jail free card getting played so they don't have to actually clean anything) 20) My boss said we are not getting paid enough to clean the ductwork above the ceiling 21) It is too cold out 22) It is too hot out 23) It is raining out 24) It is snowing out 25) It is too icky in there 26) It is below freezing (note that almost all systems can be cleaned even in below zero temps with proper equipment) 27) We don't have any ladders 28) (Fill in the blank) … …
Automatic Response from Don: "Thank you for your excuse choice(s) for not properly cleaning the exhaust system(s). They will be properly noted. Oh yes, by the way- The job still fails inspection until you go back and get it properly cleaned up. Until then, there will be no payments issued until is passes inspection!!".
TO ALL: Please send along your best excuses and I will post them in another edition of "1001 excuses on why the grease duct is not clean even though we were paid to do it(and most likely certified the system as cleaned to NFPA96 and/or IKECA/ANSI C10 standards)".