Fire-Suppression Hood May Be Necessary for Your Church Kitchen
By Donald E. Skinner
Installing a new kitchen range or remodeling your congregation’s kitchen space? Be aware that you may be required to add a range hood with fire suppression features. That’s what the Unitarian Universalist Church in Meriden, CT, found when it redid its converted farmhouse.
Such hoods have long been required in restaurants. The church’s new hood, which cost around $2,000, is designed to trigger a wet chemical spray when it senses an unsafe fire around the stove. Greg Cassells, a representative of CookSafe, which made the hood, notes that increasingly jurisdictions are requiring such hoods for noncommercial uses, including churches.
The church’s property chairman, John Grunwald, says the hood is tied into the building’s fire alarm system. The hood enables the church to get a limited food license to supply food to church functions, he says.