About Markham Hood Cleaning
Markham Hood Cleaning is a commercial kitchen exhaust cleaning business serving Markham, Aurora and Newmarket. The work is straightforward and the differences between contractors are almost entirely about documentation: what gets opened, what gets photographed, and what the certificate is willing to name. This page sets out how a visit runs and, just as importantly, which claims this business will not make.
The documentation standard
This is what the business is actually built around.
The certificate names sections, not systems. A certificate reading "hood cleaned" is a document. A certificate naming the canopy, the filters, the plenum, the duct sections, the riser and the fan is a record. The second one is what an insurer or a food-service director can actually rely on, and it is what gets issued here.
Anything unreachable is written down. Where a duct section cannot be opened, it goes on the certificate as not accessible, with the reason. This is uncomfortable to hand over and it is the right thing to do. A documented gap has a fix attached to it. An undocumented gap is a certificate that misrepresents the system, which leaves the operator worse off than having no certificate at all.
Photographs cover the parts nobody can see. A clean canopy face proves nothing, because kitchen staff wipe it nightly. A before-and-after pair of the plenum, the duct interior and the blower wheel proves the filters came out and somebody went in behind them. Those are the images provided as standard, whether or not anyone asked.
Proof of coverage arrives before the crew. WSIB coverage and liability insurance go over with the quote rather than being produced at the door when somebody thinks to ask.
What this business will not claim
Worth stating plainly, because several of these are common in this trade and some were on this site's own previous version.
Not NFPA 96 certified. The National Fire Protection Association publishes standards. It does not certify cleaning contractors, so no company can hold that credential and any business advertising it is describing something that does not exist. Markham Hood Cleaning references the published NFPA 96 standard as its technical baseline and is not affiliated with NFPA.
No number-one claims. There is no ranking body for hood cleaning in Ontario, so a "number one" claim measures nothing. The previous version of this site carried it in nearly every page title. It is gone.
No borrowed years or invented history. Nothing on this site states a founding year, a number of years in business, a crew count or a truck count, because a claim like that should be verifiable and none of these are.
No testimonials without permission. Real restaurants, supermarkets, food manufacturers and institutional kitchens across Markham have used this service, and none of them are named anywhere on this site, because nobody has given permission to publish their name. Describing the segment is honest. Printing a logo without asking is not.
No work outside the trade. Building-wide HVAC, residential air ducts, roofing repairs, gas disconnections and grease interceptor pumping are all adjacent to this work and none of them are offered. Where one of those is the actual answer, it gets reported and handed on rather than quoted.
Who Markham Hood Cleaning works for
The mix in this city is unusual, and it shapes how the work is scheduled.
The bulk of the work is independent restaurants, which in Markham means a high proportion of wok, high-heat frying and roast-meat lines. Those load an exhaust system faster than a generic schedule assumes, which is why intervals here are set from the line rather than copied from a template.
The second group is supermarket hot-food counters and food court stalls. Markham has these at a density no other city in the region matches. They run long hours on compact hoods, access is controlled by the centre rather than the tenant, and shared risers between neighbouring stalls are common enough that establishing the boundary is the first thing a quote has to do.
Beyond that: franchise and quick-service kitchens along the Highway 7 corridor, commissary kitchens and food manufacturers in the business parks off Denison Street and around Buttonville, and childcare, school and campus kitchens that cook on a timetable and can only be worked on during a scheduled break.
Larger and shared systems, meaning campus, hospital, commissary and multi-tenant riser work, are quoted on site rather than from a price band, because the variables in them are genuinely too large to band. That is the honest position and it is stated at the walk-through rather than after a quote has been given.
About Markham Hood Cleaning: frequently asked questions
Do you subcontract the work?
The crew arriving is the crew quoted, and the certificate is issued by the business that did the work. If any part of a job genuinely needs another trade, such as a licensed gas fitter to move hard-piped equipment or a roofer to assess a membrane, that is named in the quote as a separate item for the kitchen to arrange rather than folded in silently.
What happens if something gets damaged?
Liability insurance is in place and proof of it is supplied with the quote before any crew is on site. In practice the protections that matter more are the ones that stop damage happening: the line and floors covered before any degreaser is opened, equipment moved only where it is safe to move, and nothing on a roof touched without the building's agreement.
Can I get a copy of a previous certificate?
Yes. Records are kept and reissued on request, which matters when a kitchen changes hands, an insurer asks for a history, or a franchise head office needs a file rebuilt. A continuous record across several visits is considerably more persuasive to an auditor than a single recent certificate.
Why is the walk-through free?
Because pricing a kitchen exhaust system without seeing it produces a number that is either too high or that has to be revised later, and neither is a good way to start. The walk-through also frequently finds that the real problem is airflow rather than grease, in which case no cleaning is sold at all. That outcome is fine.
Do you work outside Markham, Aurora and Newmarket?
Whitchurch-Stouffville and Uxbridge are covered on route days. Beyond that the answer is generally no, and it is a plain no rather than an inflated quote. Coverage is kept concentrated so an overnight window can actually be held, which is set out on the areas served page.