What you get when we leave
Four artifacts, and you can look at all four right now — no email, no form, no “request a sample”.
1 · The dated tag on your hood
The 2021 IFC (§606.3.3.3.1) requires a tag in a conspicuous location carrying the service provider's name, address, telephone number and date of service, and it requires prior tags to be covered or removed. Half the kitchens we walk into have five stickers stacked on top of each other and nobody can tell which one is current.
Ours carries those four fields, a QR code, and a boxed line reading AREAS NOT CLEANED. The date is written at time of service in permanent ink — never pre-printed, because a pre-printed date is a back-dating tool.
Your inspector scans the QR and the whole report opens on his phone. So does your insurance agent's. So does your landlord's. That removes you from the middle of every one of those conversations.
Kitchen Exhaust System — Certificate of Performance
3 SCORPION SERVICES LLC · (409) 350-0409
Punched at time of service. Never pre-printed.
2021 IFC Table 606.3.3.1 — by cooking type.
to report
photo from this job.
3scorpionservice.com
Print artwork, 4×3 in, one-colour navy on white vinyl. Everything in a box is punched or written at the time of service — nothing about the date is pre-printed, because a pre-printed date is a back-dating tool.
2 · The signed certificate
The 2021 IFC (§606.3.3.3) requires your records to state four things: the individual performing the work, the company, a description of the work, and when it took place. Note the first one — the code wants a person, not just a company name.
Ours adds the things a fire marshal and an underwriter actually ask for and almost never get:
- Sequential certificate number. Never reused.
- Service date and real time on site, start and end. Not rounded.
- Component-by-component scope, each with a bare-metal yes or no.
- Grease depth measured before and after, per component, with the method stated.
- Itemised areas not cleaned, with reason, photo reference, and the remedy cost.
- Suppression observations: last service tag date, fusible link date, and a signed confirmation that every nozzle was photographed uncovered.
- Next inspection due date with the code basis printed next to it.
- Your signature acknowledging the deficiency list.
Black on white, one page, built to survive a photocopier, a fax machine and a grease-stained binder. No colour-coded severity without a word next to it, no light grey body text, nothing that disappears in a grayscale scan.
3 · Sixteen photographs
Ten before-and-after pairs, and six after-only shots of things we put back the way we found them.
Before and after, by component
- Hood interior
- Filter bank in place
- Filter track, filters removed
- Plenum behind the filters
- Horizontal duct at each access panel, panel labelled
- Vertical riser
- Fan blades
- Fan housing, fan hinged open
- Rooftop grease containment
- Roof surface under the fan
After only — the accountability set
- Each suppression nozzle, uncovered
- Each gas restraint cable, reattached
- Each appliance back on its marked position
- New tag installed, prior tag removed
- Kitchen floor and cook line as left
- Roof as left
Six of the sixteen photographs are of things we put back the way we found them.
Every frame in your report carries the date and your address in its caption — not buried in the EXIF, written where you can read it. Vendors reuse photo sets across venues; this is the cheap fix for that, and it means you can tell at a glance that a photo is yours.
4 · A written list of anything we could not reach
NFPA 96 §12.6.15.2 requires the cleaning report to detail five things: areas that were inaccessible and not cleaned, areas that were accessible and still not cleaned, where every duct access panel is, where the ductwork leaks, and where the access panels leak. You get all five.
We also put a short version of it on the tag itself. The code does not require that — the tag only has to carry our name, address, phone and the date of service (2021 IFC §606.3.3.3.1). We put it there because it is the line an inspector actually looks for.
When we can't get to something, it goes on the sticker, in the certificate, and in the report, with a photo, the reason, and what it would take to fix it including the price.
Plus: the Certificate of Insurance
In a trade with no license, the COI is the credential. Here is what to read on ours — and on anyone else's.
| Coverage | What it protects you from |
|---|---|
| General Liability, including products and completed operations | On our certificate: $1,000,000 each occurrence, $2,000,000 general aggregate, products–completed operations $2,000,000, occurrence form. Benchmark Insurance Company (NAIC 41394), in force 27 Aug 2026 to 27 Aug 2027. This is the part that responds if a fire traces back to our work weeks after we leave. A policy without completed operations is not useful to you for this trade. Ask any contractor whether theirs includes it. |
| Care, Custody & Control | Covers your equipment while we're working on and around it. Standard general liability specifically excludes damage to property in the contractor's care — which is exactly the broken-oven-stones scenario. Ask and we'll confirm the current coverage with the agent, in writing. |
| Damage to Premises Rented | On our certificate: $50,000 per occurrence. Your landlord's building, while we're in it. |
| Workers' Compensation | Texas doesn't require it and it isn't on our certificate. What matters for you is the general liability certificate above: keep it on file, even after it expires, and your carrier's audit has what it needs. |
Emailed to you before we arrive, with your restaurant named as certificate holder and the insured name reading 3 Scorpion Services LLC. Send us your landlord's lease clause and we'll match the additional-insured endorsement to it.
Apply this test to our paperwork first
Sequential certificate number. Service date separate from invoice date. A named individual, not just a company. Component-level scope. An itemised areas-not-cleaned list. Timestamped, site-stamped photos. A verification link.
If ours fails it, don't hire us.