Altrincham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Altrincham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Altrincham
Altrincham is a Greater Manchester market town in Trafford, around 50,000, whose Market House food-hall revival led a nationally celebrated town-centre comeback, with a Broadheath engineering heritage.
The work is engineering and food - the precision and advanced manufacturing of the historic Broadheath belt, the food manufacturing, and the printing and electronics - across the Broadheath Industrial Estate and Manor Road units, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Altrincham processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Broadheath Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Altrincham workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Altrincham and the wider Greater Manchester it is your evidence under COSHH.
Machining, grinding and mist extraction across the precision and advanced-manufacturing units of the Broadheath belt, the world's first purpose-built industrial park, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Solvent-vapour, ink-mist and solder-fume extraction across the print and electronics units, where vapour and fume need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Broadheath Industrial Estate and Manor Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Altrincham 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 Trafford College and Wythenshawe Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Altrincham
We are out under Altrincham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A precision-engineering workshop on the Broadheath Industrial Estate in Altrincham had an oil-mist extraction unit over a lathe letting a fine coolant haze escape because the coalescing filter had loaded solid. We measured the capture at the enclosure and checked the mist-collector differential. It failed on the saturated filter and the mist breakthrough, even with the fan pulling to spec. The shop machined precision components at load, so the swarf and coolant were handled to the housekeeping standard during the test.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an Altrincham system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Broadheath 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 Altrincham line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision and advanced manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
Across most Altrincham sites - the Broadheath 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 Altrincham 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 Altrincham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Manor Road 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 and advanced manufacturing bay, a food manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Altrincham 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.
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 Altrincham, but a Broadheath Industrial Estate fabrication shop and an Altrincham Market canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Precision and advanced manufacturing, food manufacturing, printing and electronics, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Broadheath Industrial Estate and Manor Road and across the wider Greater Manchester.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Broadheath Industrial Estate and Manor Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Broadheath Industrial Estate or a smaller Altrincham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Broadheath 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.
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