Cost & commercial
If one number decides your LEV test price, it is the count of extraction points. Because each hood is examined on its own, the job grows point by point - which is why an honest count up front is the single most useful thing you can do before asking for a quote.
The short answer
If one number decides your LEV test price, it is the count of extraction points. Because each hood is examined on its own, the job grows point by point - which is why an honest count up front is the single most useful thing you can do before asking for a quote.
The detail
A thorough examination is not a glance at the whole system - it is a set of measurements taken at every point where air is captured. At each hood the examiner records capture or face velocity and static pressure, checks the hood type and position against the task, and confirms the reading meets the standard the system was designed to. None of that can be averaged across the site, so the work genuinely repeats at every point.
That is why time tracks point count so closely. A single-arm bench or one welding station can be examined in an hour or two, while a system feeding twenty or thirty pick-up points can take a full day or more. Many providers reflect this directly, quoting a base rate that covers attendance and the first point or system, then a smaller charge for each additional point, so a fair quote depends on a fair count.
The trap is undercounting. It is easy to think of one machine as one point when it has several hoods, or to forget the branches feeding a shared trunk. Booths, downdraught benches, on-tool extraction and captor hoods each count. Give a provider a rough figure and the quote firms up, sometimes upward, on the day - so it pays to walk the site and tally every place air is drawn away before you compare prices.
Point count also shapes how long the site is disrupted, which carries its own cost. A handful of points can often be tested around normal work, while a large system may need access to machines that have to be paused in turn. Planning the order of testing, so production loss is kept to a minimum, is part of getting value from the visit, and it is another reason an accurate point list pays off before the engineer even arrives.
What it means for you
Before asking for numbers, make an inventory: list each system, then each point on it, including every hood on multi-station machines and every branch into the main duct. That list is what a good provider needs to quote accurately, and it doubles as the basis of your maintenance logbook.
An accurate count protects you twice. It gives you a price that will not jump on the day, and it makes sure no point is quietly left untested - because an untested hood is exactly the gap an inspector, or a worker's symptoms, will find first.
There is a compliance angle too. Because each point carries its own reading and its own place in the logbook, a missing point is not just an untested hood - it is a visible gap in the record that an inspector can spot at a glance. Counting thoroughly is therefore as much about a defensible paper trail as about the fee, and the two protect you together rather than separately.
The service behind the guide
Sibling guides
Budgeting a multi-machine site · Is cheap testing a false economy? · Signs a system was undersized from the start
Questions
Each point is measured individually for velocity and static pressure, so the examiner's time and the price grow with the number of points.
A single-arm system may take an hour or two, while a system with twenty or thirty points can take a full day or more.
Often as a base rate covering attendance and the first point or system, plus a smaller charge for each additional point.
Every hood, booth, downdraught bench, on-tool capture and branch where air is drawn away - not just each machine.
An accurate count gives a price that will not jump on the day and ensures no hood is left untested and non-compliant.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Tell us how many hoods and capture points you run and we will turn that straight into a clear quote.