Duties, inspection intervals and evidence — classified by legal status, not by industry assertion.
VDI 2052 is a private technical guideline for ventilation systems in kitchens, not a law. The duty to clean arises for operators from occupational health and safety, from the duty to maintain public safety and from the insurance contract. What matters is therefore not a certificate but traceable documentation: what was cleaned, when, how and by whom.
Anyone who talks about kitchen extract cleaning almost always uses terms that carry very different degrees of obligation. Without that separation the typical misunderstandings arise: a guideline is taken for a law, a rule for a regulation, a record for a certificate.
A grease fire inside the ductwork is not damage to a kitchen counter. It can spread through ducts and suspended ceilings, shut an operation down for weeks and damage building services, stock and rented floor space. The commercial impact comes less from the cost of cleaning than from the consequences.
Then there is the time window: cleaning takes place outside kitchen hours. If it is not planned, it becomes an emergency — with greater effort and greater coordination risk.
Industry brochures regularly claim that kitchen extract cleaning is 'legally mandatory under DGUV Regel 110-003 and VdS 2298'. That is wrong twice over: a DGUV Regel is not a legal norm, and VdS 2298 is a guideline of the insurance industry. The actual layers are these:
No statute names kitchen extract cleaning in so many words. The duty arises indirectly, and that is precisely why it cannot be settled with one sentence.
A guideline that is not a law can nevertheless become binding. Four routes are typical for operators — and all four are questions of contract or of the individual case, not a general legal position.
The following steps describe general professional practice. They are not a certified procedure and not a regulation, but the sequence against which quotations can be compared.
Kitchen staff can rinse grease filters, clean panels and grease channels and carry out visual checks. Anything behind the duct connection cannot be worked on safely without equipment, protective clothing and access.
There is no statutory deadline for kitchen extract cleaning. Deadlines arise from contract, insurance terms, manufacturer specifications or official requirements. The overview below is orientation drawn from professional practice and is expressly not a promise and not a deadline.
Anyone who finds after the first year that the ducts are barely loaded can extend the interval with reasons. Where there is heavy grease mist the interval is to be shortened — regardless of any table.
Orientation from professional practice. Not a statutory deadline, not a promise.
| Type of operation and load | Typical appliances | Visual inspection | Deep cleaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Very high grease load, long operating hours, deep frying and grilling | Deep fryers, lava stone grill, wok | monthly | quarterly |
| Typical restaurant and hotel kitchen | Combi steamer, range, griddle | monthly to quarterly | half-yearly |
| Canteen and hospital kitchen with mixed operation | Large boiling pans, tilting bratt pan, steamer | quarterly | half-yearly to yearly |
| Reheating kitchen, bakery, mainly dry heat | Oven, convection oven | quarterly to half-yearly | yearly |
These points can be answered without a specialist contractor. Where an answer is missing, that is the next sensible step — not the next cleaning order.
The effort follows technical and organisational factors, not a flat-rate approach. These points belong in every enquiry, because they explain the difference between two quotations.
The following terms are used constantly in quotations and records, and are regularly mixed up in the process. The explanations are deliberately in plain language.
Five things are regularly treated as the same in this subject, and they are not. The distinction determines what you actually have to do and what you should merely do.
This distinction follows the project's editorial standard. It sets out which statement carries which weight — and where a company cannot issue a certification.
Answered briefly, so the guide prepares a decision rather than merely informing.
Not in so many words. No statute prescribes cleaning to VDI 2052 at a fixed interval. What is mandatory is to avoid hazards and to operate workplaces safely. In practice that is met through regular cleaning and documentation — or you have to explain in the event of a loss why it was not. That is where the risk lies, not in a missing deadline.
VDI 2052 is a private technical guideline of the VDI, VdS 2298 a guideline of the insurance industry. Neither is a law. VDI 2052 takes effect through contract and trade custom, VdS 2298 exclusively through the insurance contract. What matters for you is therefore what your own terms say — not which guideline sounds stricter.
No. A cleaning company does not issue a declaration of conformity, and there is no body that grants one for this service. You receive a cleaning record with date, components, methods, photographs and open points. That is the evidence you can present to an insurer, an authority or an expert — a certificate it would not be.
That cannot be said in such general terms, and nobody can promise it in advance. The insurer examines whether you met your contractual duties. Incomplete documentation can lead to a reduction or a refusal, in particular where the conduct is assessed as grossly negligent. Whether that happens depends on the agreed terms and on the individual case.
The kitchen area has to be closed off for the work; it runs outside kitchen hours, and cooking appliances and food are covered. Daily cleaning does not replace it: it does not reach ducts, bends, fire dampers and the fan. Yet those are exactly the components that carry the fire load this is about.
Then the duct system cannot be cleaned. Inspection openings have to be planned and installed; the requirements on layout and tightness follow from the applicable rule set. That full text is subject to a fee and was not available to us — so we tell you that openings are needed and plan them for the specific site, rather than quoting a normative clause.
VDI 2052 deals with ventilation systems for kitchens, and therefore with grease as a fire load. VDI 6022 addresses the hygiene of ventilation systems more generally — germs, moisture, particles. Which of the two applies to you therefore does not depend on the size of the building, but on which system is being considered.
Which service suits your system depends on what you want cleaned. These pages describe the respective scope.
We look at the visible components, estimate the degree of contamination and point out missing inspection openings.
Service, property and contact details – that is all we need.
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