Aberdeen · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Aberdeen workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Aberdeen
Aberdeen is Scotland's third city and its north-east port, home to around 200,000 people. Known as the Granite City for the silver-grey stone it was built from and as the oil and gas capital of Europe, it works around a harbour that has traded since 1136.
The signature trades are energy and engineering - the oil and gas fabrication, subsea and precision-engineering units clustered at Altens and Tullos to the south-east and out at Dyce by the airport and heliport, with fish and food processing down at the harbour rounding out a genuinely industrial base.
Wherever an Aberdeen process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Altens Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Aberdeen workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Aberdeen and the wider Aberdeen it is your evidence under COSHH.
Cutting, gouging and welding of subsea structures, modules and pipework run at the Altens and Tullos yards that feed the North Sea. Fixed and mobile LEV drawn to each station pulls metal fume off the operator before it is breathed.
CNC machining, toolrooms and test bays serving the offshore trade throw oil mist and fine swarf into the air. Mist collectors and captor hoods pull it off the machines at Dyce and Tullos before it reaches the operator.
Haddock, whiting and shellfish landed at the harbour are gutted, filleted and chilled in processing rooms thick with brine mist, cleaning chemicals and refrigeration load. Extraction and make-up air hold the humidity and aerosols down.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Altens Industrial Estate and East Tullos units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Aberdeen bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the University of Aberdeen and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Aberdeen
We are out under Aberdeen's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A school science lab in Aberdeen had the capture velocity at some of its fume cupboards dropping below benchmark, traced to a slipping fan drive belt. We carried out a thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, running smoke visualisation and checking the filter, then re-tested each cupboard. The LEV passed on re-test across the fume cupboards, and we logged and reported the benchmark readings.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For an Aberdeen system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Altens Industrial Estate units - the faults that quietly kill capture.
Face and capture velocities, static pressures and airflows measured at each hood with calibrated instruments - numbers, not opinion.
Readings compared to the system's commissioning figures, so drift from as-designed is caught before it becomes a failure on an Aberdeen line.
Where exposure is in question - an oil and gas fabrication process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
Across most Aberdeen sites - the Altens Industrial Estate plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Aberdeen site.
Calibrated velocity, pressure and airflow readings at each extraction point.
A COSHH-compliant report: results against benchmark, clear pass or fail, and plain-English actions for the Aberdeen duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the East Tullos floor.
Questions
Under COSHH Regulation 9, most local exhaust ventilation needs a thorough examination and test at least every 14 months, with higher-risk processes more often. An oil and gas fabrication bay, a subsea and precision engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
No. LEV testing is a statutory examination of fume and dust control to COSHH and HSG258, with capture and face-velocity readings; TR19 is kitchen grease and fire risk. We do both across Aberdeen, but an Altens Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Union Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. Each hood is labelled with its status and next-due date, and you get the HSG258 report and system schematic for your COSHH file - the record an HSE inspector visiting an Altens Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
oil and gas fabrication, subsea and precision engineering, fish and food processing, welding and fabrication, vehicle bodyshops, and the teaching and clinical labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Altens Industrial Estate and East Tullos and across the wider Aberdeen.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Altens Industrial Estate and East Tullos, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Aberdeen.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Altens Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Aberdeen university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
A dated report to the HSG258 method, the readings taken, a pass or remedial outcome for each hood, and system labelling - the evidence a duty-holder at Altens Industrial Estate or a smaller Aberdeen workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Rubislaw Quarry, on the western edge of the city, gave up the silver-grey granite that built Aberdeen for more than 300 years before it closed in 1971, leaving one of the largest man-made holes in Europe, some 140 metres deep and now flooded. The stone, metal and energy trades that keep the city working today cut, weld and grind with power tools, and the fume and dust that follows is held by local exhaust ventilation - captured at the tool, ducted out, and tested to the airflow the work demands.
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