BinderWhy did I get a letter from the fire department about my fire system?
Three kinds of letter, three different levels of urgency. Read the subject line first.
Guides
What the published standards say about keeping service records, what they leave to your inspector, and what to do when you cannot produce something.
Letters from the fire department
What a renewal, overdue or order to comply notice means, who is required to file what, and why a report filed with the city is not your record.
My inspector files the report with the city. Do I still need my own copy?
Filed with the city and on file with you are two different things, and only one of them is yours.
What does an order to comply or deficiency notice mean?
The serious letter. A fixed clock, named deficiencies, and a re-inspection at the end.
Why is there a compliance or filing fee on my hood cleaning invoice?
A per-report fee charged to your contractor, sometimes passed on to you.
When something has already gone wrong
An inspector asked and you have nothing, a certificate is lost, a manager left, or an inspection did not go well.
The inspector asked for records I do not have. What now?
The records usually exist. They are just held by eight different vendors rather than by you.
I lost the certificate. Can I get another copy?
The vendor almost certainly still has it. What to ask for, and what to do when the vendor is gone.
What happens if you fail a health inspection?
Closure is rare and specific. The ordinary outcome is a clock, and records are what stop it starting.
What do health inspectors actually cite restaurants for?
An analysis of 87,660 real inspections. Paperwork is rarely the finding, with two notable exceptions.
Our manager left and nobody knows where the compliance records are
How to rebuild a record from vendors and payments, and how to stop it happening again.
How often each service is required
What the published standards say for each trade, and where they leave the interval to your authority having jurisdiction.
How often does a commercial kitchen hood need cleaning?
Four tiers, set by cooking type and volume rather than by the size of the kitchen.
How often do fire extinguishers need to be inspected in a restaurant?
Three different intervals get called the inspection, and only one of them is done by a company that leaves you paperwork.
How often does a kitchen fire suppression system need to be inspected?
Every six months, by a licensed company, plus a monthly look by you. The links and the cylinder are separate.
How often does a grease trap need to be pumped?
No national number. The sewer authority sets it, and the manifest matters as much as the pumping.
How often does a fire alarm system need to be inspected?
Annual for most of it, but the interval is per component and not everything is yearly.
Does a restaurant need an annual backflow prevention test?
Usually annual, usually filed with the utility, and the one record most operators never receive a copy of.
How often does a restaurant sprinkler system need inspecting?
Several cycles at once on one system. Treating it as an annual job is the usual mistake.
How often does an emergency generator have to be tested?
Monthly and annual, and the annual depends on how the monthly went.
How often does a wood-fired or charcoal kitchen need hood cleaning?
The shortest interval in NFPA 96, and the one people inherit without realising it.
What a record has to be
What belongs on a certificate, how long to keep it, and why an invoice and a sticker are not the same as a record.
How long do you have to keep hood cleaning records?
The standard does not give a number. Three other things do, and they disagree with each other.
Is the sticker on the hood enough for an inspection?
The label and the certificate are two separate requirements. Most operators only have the first.
What records does a restaurant need to keep for inspections?
Eight or nine recurring services, each with a different vendor and a different piece of paper.
Do I need to keep pest control records for a health inspection?
Not code mandated, routinely inspected, and one of the few paperwork violations that actually gets written up.
Does a certified food protection manager certificate expire?
The one record that walks out of the building when somebody resigns.
What has to be on a hood cleaning certificate?
Three named fields, and the document most operators keep instead has none of them.
Insurance and franchise requirements
The obligations that come from a policy or an agreement rather than from a code, which are frequently the stricter ones.
What does an insurer ask for after a kitchen fire?
The adjuster asks for the same three things every time, and they are all dated documents.
Does my restaurant insurance require hood cleaning?
A specific form number you can look up yourself, and P-5 is broader than the hood alone.
What compliance records does a franchisor audit ask for?
The one set of requirements you agreed to in writing, and can therefore read.
Opening, buying and handing over
Setting records up at the start, changing vendors, taking over a kitchen, and working out what the lease makes yours.
What records should I get before changing hood cleaning companies?
The history belongs to your building. Collect it before the relationship ends, not after.
What compliance records should I ask for when buying a restaurant?
A due diligence list. What is missing tells you as much as what is present.
Is the landlord or the tenant responsible for hood cleaning?
Two separate questions: who pays under the lease, and who gets asked by an inspector. They often have different answers.
What compliance records should a new restaurant set up from day one?
The one moment when this is easy, and almost nobody uses it.
Where you are
Which model code your state has adopted, which edition, and why that is frequently older than the one you will find written about online.
Which fire code does Indiana use?
The state adopted the 2012 IFC and has not moved since. Most articles you will find online describe a newer edition.
Why is the fire code different in every state?
Adoption lag, and why an article about the current code may be describing something your state never adopted.
Which fire code does Texas use?
The honest answer is that there is no one answer. Articles claiming a single statewide edition are oversimplifying.
Which fire code does Florida use?
A different model code family from most states, statewide, and about to change.
Which fire code does New York use?
Two different answers in one state, and which one applies depends on whether you are inside the five boroughs.
Stop reconstructing this from memory
Binder gives each location an email address. Vendors send their reports there and the record assembles itself, so the next time someone asks for two years of history you send a link.
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