We have operated a professional grease filter cleaning service for a number of years, servicing many retail food outlets, institutional kitchens, food manufacturers in Dunedin and the surrounding area.
Most councils and insurance companies around NZ will expect you to maintain clean grease filters as a standard part of your general housekeeping duty of care.

Why Should You Clean How Often Should Grease Grease Filters? Be Cleaned?

Clean filters are your first line of defence in the event of a kitchen fire. A filter laden with grease provides immediate fuel for a fire. Once the fire has burnt through the filter it is sucked up the duct by the fan until it can exit the building. A dirty duct will provide fuel for what has now become a building fire. Grease-laden filters also restrict air flow out of the kitchen meaning that the area can become uncomfortably hot. Smoke and cooking smells are also likely to spread into the dining area. Regular cleaning of extraction system components is a mandatory requirement for a building warrant of fitness if you have one.

Why You Shouldn't Clean Grease Filters In a Dishwasher

Aluminium honeycomb filters (the most common type of grease filter in NZ) do not get cleaned thoroughly in a dishwasher and may in fact get damaged. Dishwashers are built for washing flat, round dishes – not dense square objects like filters. Using your dishwasher to clean filters means that over time they can get a build-up of organic matter, particularly in the corners of the filter, degrading its efficiency. Dishwasher chemicals are also corrosive to the filter media.

This depends on the type of food cooked and the type of oil used. Businesses often get their filters cleaned on a monthly basis, though some need them cleaned more frequently. For example a business cooking burgers will often need it's filters cleaned every 1 or 2 weeks, whereas a cafe may need them cleaned every 6-8 weeks. The cleaning cycle should not be so long that there is sufficient grease in the filters to start a cooking fire.

Grease Filter Cleaning Outside of Dunedin

XFilter is a courier-based filter cleaning service for businesses out of Dunedin. The process is very simple; we send clean filters to a customer and they send their dirty filters back to us.