Airdrie · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Airdrie workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Airdrie
Airdrie is a Lanarkshire town of around 37,000 people on the high ground east of Glasgow, twinned in a single conurbation with neighbouring Coatbridge across the old Monklands coalfield. It carries an unusual claim to fame - the Airdrie Savings Bank, founded in 1835, was the last independent savings bank in Britain when it finally closed in 2017 after 182 years.
Its working economy runs on food production, precision engineering and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Brownsburn Industrial Estate and Osprey Trade Park on the town's southern edge.
Every one of those Airdrie processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Brownsburn Industrial Estate units to the smaller Airdrie workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Airdrie employers and others across Lanarkshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and pipe-working shops, a trade Airdrie inherited from the steel-tube works and iron foundries that once ringed the Monklands coalfield.
Steam canopies, chilling-hall airflow and flour-dust control in the town's food plants, led by Albert Bartlett, whose Airdrie potato facility processes tens of thousands of tonnes of Scottish-grown crop a year.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Airdrie cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Brownsburn and Osprey units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Airdrie 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 University Hospital Monklands and the science labs of New College Lanarkshire, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Airdrie
We are out under Airdrie's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A small fabrication shop in Airdrie had the airflow at its fume extraction arms down on the last test, traced to a partly blocked filter on the unit. We carried out a full thorough examination and test, logging velocity readings, running smoke visualisation and checking the filter. The LEV passed across the bench capture hoods on re-test with a test certificate to show for it, and we slotted the job into a quiet Sunday to suit the workshop manager.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On an Airdrie system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Brownsburn 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 Airdrie line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
The duty is written into COSHH Regulation 9: where LEV controls a hazardous substance, the employer must have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months and keep the records for five years.
For the great majority of Airdrie sites, from the Brownsburn Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Airdrie 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 Airdrie duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Osprey Trade Park 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. A precision engineering and manufacturing bay, a food and drink production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Brownsburn Industrial Estate or a smaller Airdrie workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Airdrie workshop needs a commissioning test to prove it performs to its design figures before it goes into service - we measure it and document the baseline the 14-month clock then runs from.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Brownsburn Industrial Estate and Osprey Trade Park and across the wider Lanarkshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Brownsburn Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Airdrie university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Brownsburn Industrial Estate and Osprey Trade Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Lanarkshire.
We record it as remedial and set out what is needed - airflow, ductwork, filtration or capture at the hood. You do the work and we re-test, and on a Brownsburn Industrial Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Local knowledge
As the linen and hand-loom weaving that first built Airdrie declined, its farm tenants leased out the coal and ironstone beneath their land, and by the mid nineteenth century iron works, collieries and pipe foundries had transformed the town. That heavy-engineering instinct still runs through Airdrie's machine and fabrication shops, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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