AS 1851 and Kitchen Exhaust Cleaning: What Sydney Operators Actually Need

AS 1851 is the Australian Standard for the routine service of fire protection systems and equipment. Commercial kitchen exhaust hood and duct systems fall within its scope, which is why insurers, landlords and councils reference it when they ask for cleaning records.

Does AS 1851 apply to my kitchen?

There is no single NSW law that says “clean your duct every six months”. AS 1851 becomes binding through other instruments:

• Your insurance policy. Most commercial hospitality policies require exhaust cleaning at a stated interval with written evidence.
• Your lease. Landlords and shopping centres commonly require documented cleaning of tenancy exhaust systems.
• Council food premises conditions. Some development consents and food-premises approvals reference ventilation maintenance directly.

If any one of those applies to you — and for most Sydney venues at least one does — AS 1851 is effectively a contractual requirement.

What documentation should you receive?

After every clean you should hold:

1. A dated compliance certificate naming the site, the specific system cleaned, and the technician who cleaned it.
2. Before and after photographs taken at every access point that was opened.
3. Grease depth measurements recorded per access point, so the interval is evidence-based.
4. A written defect report listing anything wrong with the system and a recommended action.
5. A next-service date derived from the measurements above.

An invoice is not documentation. It proves you paid someone; it does not prove the work met the standard.

AS 1851 versus AS/NZS 1668.1

These get conflated constantly. They cover different things:

Cleaning to AS 1851 cannot fix a system that breaches AS/NZS 1668.1. If your discharge terminates too close to a fresh-air intake, no amount of degreasing resolves it — but a competent contractor will tell you it is happening.

What an auditor is actually checking

From experience across Sydney sites, an inspector or assessor looks for four things:

• Is there a current certificate — not one from two years ago?
• Does the interval between certificates match the interval your policy or lease specifies?
• Is there evidence behind the certificate, or just a claim?
• Were defects identified and closed out, or does the same defect appear on three consecutive reports?

That last one catches people. A defect list that never changes reads as a defect list nobody acted on.

Common failure points

• Missing access panels. A duct section that cannot be reached cannot be cleaned or certified. Any certificate covering it is unreliable.
• Fan excluded from scope. Grease at the discharge drains back into a freshly cleaned run.
• Documentation as a paid extra. If a contractor charges separately for the certificate, documentation is not part of how they work.
• Intervals set by sales package. A fixed annual plan sold to every venue regardless of cooking type is a pricing model, not a maintenance strategy.

Getting compliant from a standing start

If you have no records at all, the sequence is:

1. Baseline inspection — survey the system, measure grease depth, map access.
2. Remediate access — fit compliant sealed panels wherever the run cannot be reached.
3. Full clean — canopy, filters, duct run, riser, fan and discharge.
4. Certify and schedule — issue the certificate, set the interval from measurement, book the next visit.

Our compliance and safety cleaning service is built around exactly that sequence. If you are heading into an audit or a policy renewal, tell us the date and we will work back from it.