Hood cleaning stickers fail because of grease, so degrease the exact spot and let it dry before the sticker goes on. Quick answers are on our hood cleaning page, and the tags are in our hood cleaning stickers. This is the detail behind them.
Grease is the whole problem
In most trades the surface problem is dust. In yours it's grease, which is worse: a film too thin to see is thick enough to stop adhesive bonding at all.
Degrease the exact spot where the sticker goes, not the whole area, and let it dry completely. A solvent wipe and thirty seconds of patience are the difference between a tag that's still there at the next inspection and one that's on the floor.
This matters more than the material, the adhesive, or anything we print. A high-tack adhesive on a greasy surface still fails. Hood cleaning stickers: grease is the problem goes further.
Heat
Hood and duct surfaces run hot. Apply to a cool surface where you can: adhesive needs to flow to bond, and it flows badly onto a surface that's too hot as well as one that's too cold. Heat and stickers has more.
Laying out a compliance tag
A compliance tag is a form, not a logo. Lay it out as one:
- Preprint everything that never changes: company name, license number, and phone number.
- Give real room to the date, the technician, and the next due date. These get written in a hurry, in poor light, often on a ladder.
- Choose a matte finish. It takes a ballpoint pen as well as a permanent marker. On vinyl, gloss takes a marker but a pen only to a degree; on a roll, writing on gloss scratches off with a fingernail.
- Keep everything inside the safe area, 0.09" inside the cut on vinyl and 1/8" on a roll, so nothing is trimmed.
If your authority requires a layout, send it, and we'll set the tag up to match. If you only know the fields, tell us, and we'll design it. Nothing prints until you approve the proof. Hood cleaning compliance tags covers the layout in more detail.
Surfaces
Stainless steel takes standard vinyl well once it's truly clean. Painted and powder-coated ductwork is harder for adhesive to grip, so clean it especially well, and ask us before you order if tags have lifted there before. See stickers on stainless steel.
Durability
Ultraviolet light is what fades print, and there's very little of it inside a kitchen, so a tag indoors lasts considerably longer than one outdoors. On a rooftop fan, expect 3 to 5 years before the print starts to fade.
Ordering
The minimum is 50 of a design on vinyl, or 100 on polyester or plastic perforated rolls. Production takes 4 business days after you approve the proof, on vinyl or on a perforated roll, and Rush is available for a fee. An exact reorder of an approved tag skips the proof round, which helps when you order the same tag every year.