Guide from the team
Any contractor can claim to clean to TR19. Here is how to tell the ones who actually can, and why independent verification matters.
Published 8 September 2026
There is no licence for TR19 cleaning. Nothing stops a general cleaning company from adding “TR19 duct cleaning” to its website tomorrow. TR19 and TR19 Grease are industry guidance published by BESA, not law, so the question of who can carry out the work is really a question of competence: who can actually clean your system to the standard, prove it, and leave documentation that stands up when someone asks for it.
The underlying legal duties are real even though the standard itself is guidance. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires fire safety measures to be maintained in efficient working order, and your fire risk assessment has to deal with the grease that accumulates in kitchen extract systems; workplace ventilation duties sit in the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, supported by ACoP L24. TR19 is how the industry demonstrates those duties have been met. If your contractor cannot evidence the work, the gap lands on you as the responsible person, not on them.
Because there is no licence, the claim itself is worthless. What separates a competent contractor from a chancer with a vacuum is evidence, and four things do most of the work.
Ask whether the operatives who will attend your site are trained through BESA’s TR19 programmes, not just the person who answers the phone. Cleaning ventilation and ductwork to the standard means knowing what cleanliness level applies, how deposits are measured, where access is needed and what has to be recorded. An untrained team can make ductwork look clean at the access panels while leaving the runs between them untouched.
BESCA is BESA’s certification body, and it runs the Vent Hygiene Register: the scheme through which ventilation hygiene contractors are assessed. Membership tells you two things: the contractor’s operatives are TR19 trained, and completed work is independently audited, so the certificate you receive has been verified by someone other than the company that did the cleaning. You can check membership on the register directly.
A competent contractor photographs the system before and after cleaning and builds those photographs into a written report. If photographic evidence is treated as an optional extra, walk away: you have paid for a clean you cannot prove happened, and a certificate with nothing behind it is close to worthless when an insurer or fire risk assessor asks for your records. Our article on what is in a TR19 report sets out what the finished document should contain.
Ask for evidence of the contractor’s own insurance: public liability at a sensible level, and employer’s liability. Ventilation hygiene work happens at height, in plant rooms and above suspended ceilings. A contractor who cannot evidence their own cover is one whose mistakes become your problem.
Self-declared compliance has an obvious flaw: the person declaring it is the person who profits from the declaration. A contractor marking their own homework can issue a certificate whether or not the system was cleaned to standard, and clients have no practical way to check: the evidence is sealed inside ductwork.
Independent verification breaks that loop. When completed work is submitted for audit under the BESCA scheme, the report, the photographs and the certificate are reviewed by the certification body rather than simply filed by the contractor. The paperwork in your compliance file becomes verified evidence rather than a promise.
This applies across the whole system, not just kitchen extract. Supply and extract ductwork and air handling units benefit from the same discipline: trained operatives, measured results, photographs, and a report someone else has checked.
To be straightforward: Clean Ducts is a BESCA Vent Hygiene Associate member. Our operatives are TR19 trained and our completed work is independently audited through the scheme, so the certificates we issue are verified rather than self-declared. We would rather say that plainly than reach for a bigger-sounding claim.
If you are comparing contractors, apply the same four tests to us: training, the register, a sample report, insurance. And if you want to know which standard applies to your building before you start, TR19 vs TR19 Grease walks through the difference.
The quickest way to find out what your ductwork needs is a free, no obligation survey: an engineer assesses the system, records its condition and sets out what compliance requires. Request a survey or get a TR19 quote to start. And if you already hold a TR19 report from another contractor, send it over and we will read it for you.
No. TR19 and TR19 Grease are industry guidance published by BESA, not law. The legal duties come from the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which requires fire safety measures to be maintained in efficient working order, and from the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations with ACoP L24. TR19 is the recognised way of demonstrating those duties have been met.
No licence exists for ventilation hygiene work, so competence has to be judged on evidence. The practical markers are BESA TR19 training for the operatives on site, membership of BESCA’s Vent Hygiene Register, photographic reporting as standard, and the contractor’s own liability insurance.
The Vent Hygiene Register is run by BESCA, the certification body of BESA. Contractors on the register employ TR19-trained operatives and have their completed work independently audited, so the certificates they issue are verified by the scheme rather than self-declared.
Yes. Clean Ducts is a BESCA Vent Hygiene Associate member. Our operatives are trained through BESA’s TR19 programmes and our completed work is independently audited under the scheme, so the certificates we issue are verified rather than self-declared.
Send us your existing report or book a free survey. A named engineer replies within 24 hours.