One of the pitfalls and major annoyances of running a commercial kitchen space is keeping the
kitchen up to code. Every city and state require restaurants and other commercial kitchens to
abide by their codes and rules, and to help ensure you meet their health and safety standards
you will be randomly visited by an inspector every few months. The inspector’s job is to not only
ensure your kitchen is keeping up to health standards for food quality and cleanliness on top of
also ensuring that your kitchen space does not pose any safety and fire risks.

When an inspector comes to look at your kitchen, they generally are looking at a few areas of
your kitchen. For starters they want to ensure that your kitchen area has adequate ventilation.
Proper ventilation may be different from restaurant to restaurant based on the different factors,
including the layout of your kitchen and the food that your kitchen is outputting. For example, if
you are cooking high fat foods you are going to be producing much heavier volumes of grease
and therefore will require a stronger ventilation system than say a bakery. Be sure that your
hood system is set up properly for your kitchen’s specific needs, and that your ventilation
system is enough for those needs.

Your kitchen’s layout will also be reviewed by an inspector. Cooking equipment is best suited up
against the back wall of a kitchen area, with a wall mounted hood system placed above it. An
island set up is doable, as overhead hood set ups are most common Inspectors will check to
ensure that each kitchen appliance is set up with a proper hood system for optimal cleanliness.
While the hood exhaust fans are designed to remove air out of the kitchen, makeup air systems
help pull in fresh air from outside the kitchen. Inspectors will often look for a makeup air system,
especially for high volume and hot kitchens, since these systems replace the air that is filled
with grease and smoke with fresh air from outside, creating a much safer and cooler, more
comfortable air supply for staff and customers. A makeup air system also helps an HVAC
system run more efficiently.

It may seem like an inspectors job is to make a restaurants life hell, however their job is
designed to ensure the safety and wellbeing of not only the customers of the restaurant but the
restaurant staff themselves. By following some of the tips above regarding proper ventilation
and equipment set up you feel confident that an inspector won’t hassle you too much and keep
your kitchen up and running.

HoodMart provides our customers with a wide range of exhaust hood systems - from
Compensating (Short Cycle) to Perforated Supply Plenum PSP - as well as all exhaust hood
accessories such as no weld Grease Duct, hood filters, canopy hood lights, and curbs. If you
still have questions regarding the purchase of your hood system, please feel free to contact one
of our experts today by calling us at 1.800.715.1014 or by contacting us through our live chat
system.