The kitchen area produces the most combustible grease that may cause fire when it reaches its flashpoint. Add the kitchen status in each busy restaurant, and the accumulated oil in the ducts has a high chance of igniting a fire.
Fire accidents are why commercial builders and architects highly advise that kitchen areas, especially those in restaurants, must have exhaust fans, a grease duct system, and, most importantly, an HVAC grease duct access door.
Table of Contents
Primary Purposes of HVAC Grease Duct Access Doors
Whether planning or working on a renovation or a new construction project, you must give room for access panels, especially in areas prone to accidents like your kitchen. Installing access doors, particularly plumbing and grease duct doors, will help protect your building from fire accidents.
The HVAC grease duct access doors have several purposes that you will find beneficial. Although some of these usages are underrated and usually overlooked or deemed unnecessary, you must consider these reasons as they will help you prevent financial loss due to fire-related accidents.
Conceal Building Components
Access doors’ designs intend to conceal equipment, wirings, cables, and essential systems such as grease ducts.
This intent might not seem as important as the other purposes on this list. However, with today’s trend, hiding the components is a must to prevent people from accessing them, causing accidents that may affect business operations.
Also, hiding the internal components and blending the access door into your interior’s design will maintain the area’s aesthetics, whether installed inside or outside the kitchen.
Maintenance And Repair
Regularly cleaning the duct system lessens the building’s chances of having a fire-related accident due to accumulated combustible grease on the duct system.
For the maintenance team to efficiently remove the oil, the access panels must be easy to open and allows them to pass through quickly. Most importantly, the access door’s opening must be big enough for a full-grown person to crawl through it.
Protects Your Building’s Systems
All your building components must have access doors and panels that are durable. The durability of the access door is vital in protecting your systems from rodents, bags of dust, unauthorized personnel, and severe weather conditions that may damage your systems, causing you to replace them unreasonably.
NFPA Compliance
Fire outbreaks can cause severe damage to the business owner, the employees, and the community. For this reason, business owners and commercial builders must follow the fire code standards that the NFPA requires.
One of their requirements is for business establishments, particularly restaurants, to have a proper exhaust system for fire and health regulations and an access door that the maintenance and repair team may use. However, the access door must meet all the requirements that the NFPA or your local community imposes.
Prevents fire Accidents
Due to fire accidents, explosive grease build-up in your ductwork will risk your building and people’s lives. If a fire outbreak happens, it will affect your financial status depending on the damage size of the accident. Although you can’t completely prevent any fire accident from happening, adding a fire-rated grease duct access door helps you minimize your financial loss.
These fire-rated access doors can prevent the spread of fire for up to three hours, giving you ample time to save important documents and evacuate from the premise.
Fire outbreaks may be inevitable and cause you to lose business, but you can lessen the risk by following the NFPA rules and regulations and the grease duct system’s maintenance schedule. Also, remember that grease duct access doors are essential for the maintenance team to maintain the duct system properly.
Start investing in HVAC grease duct access doors now and enjoy their benefits!