Access panels and fan hinges
You cannot clean what you cannot reach. Missing access panels and seized fan hinges are the two most common reasons a duct run has never actually been serviced.
Duct access doors
Access doors go where the duct layout needs them, not where they are easiest to cut. Once they are in, run that nobody could reach becomes part of the documented scope.
Fan hinge kits
A hinge lets the fan tilt back safely so the blades and housing can be cleaned. A seized or missing hinge is usually why your last report had no fan photos in it at all.
Sequencing
Access work gets quoted before the clean, not sprung on you at 2 a.m. as a surprise line item. If we find the need during service, we stop, photograph it, and wait for your approval.
Signs your duct has no usable access
Included
- The last report has hood photos and nothing from above the filters
- There are no rooftop fan photos in the file at all
- Nobody at the restaurant can say how long the duct run is
- The horizontal run crosses a ceiling with no panel visible from below
- An inspector wrote up a section nobody has been able to open
- The last crew was in and out in under two hours on a fryer kitchen
What an access door install involves
The opening gets cut and framed where the duct layout needs it: at direction changes, at the base of a vertical rise, and at intervals along a horizontal run. The door is gasketed and fastened so it seals closed and opens again next year without being destroyed.
We photograph the run before the door goes in and again the first time it comes off. That pair is the only proof the section was ever reachable.
Questions we get
My duct was cleaned last year. Do I still need access panels?
Ask for the photographs from that job first. If there are no pictures from inside the run, the run was probably not entered. A duct with no access is a duct nobody has been in.
Will cutting an access door damage my duct?
A correctly framed and gasketed door is a repairable feature of the duct. What damages a duct is forcing a panel that was never built to open, year after year.
Can you install a hinge on any rooftop fan?
Most upblast fans take a standard hinge kit. Some do not, and some sit on a curb that needs attention first. We photograph the fan and the curb and tell you which one you have before quoting.
Do I have to buy the access work to get the cleaning?
No. They are quoted separately and you can decline the access work. The report then names what stayed unreachable. What we will not do is clean the reachable few feet and write down that the duct is done.
Who decides where the access doors go?
The duct layout does. We walk the run, mark the direction changes and the vertical rise, and show you the positions on the quote before anything is cut.
Get a free access quote
Tell us the hood and fan count and roughly when it was last cleaned. Photos of the hood, the filters and the rooftop fan speed the quote up considerably.