Aylesbury · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Aylesbury workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Aylesbury
Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire, around 60,000 in the South East, home to Stoke Mandeville Hospital - the birthplace of the Paralympic movement - and to the historic Aylesbury duck.
The work is printing and engineering - the commercial printing of the town's long heritage, the food manufacturing and catering, and the light and advanced engineering - across the Rabans Lane Industrial Estate and Gatehouse estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Aylesbury 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 Rabans Lane Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Aylesbury workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Aylesbury and the rest of Buckinghamshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Solvent-vapour and mist extraction across the commercial-printing and finishing units, the defining trade of the town's printing heritage, where ink and coating vapour need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food producers and catering units, where organic dust needs capture proven.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the light and advanced-engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Rabans Lane Industrial Estate and Gatehouse units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Aylesbury 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 Aylesbury College and Stoke Mandeville Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Aylesbury
We are out under Aylesbury's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A commercial printing works in Aylesbury had a solvent-vapour extraction over a press line running weak because a damper in the branch had dropped shut and starved the hood. We freed the damper, re-ran the capture check at the press and measured the branch flow. It failed at first on the low capture from the closed damper and passed once it was reset, the vapour drawn cleanly off the ink train. The press ran heat-set inks, so solvent-vapour monitoring backed up the airflow test.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On an Aylesbury system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Rabans Lane 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 Aylesbury line.
Where exposure is in question - a commercial printing 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 Aylesbury sites - the Rabans Lane 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 Aylesbury 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 Aylesbury duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Gatehouse Industrial Area 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 commercial printing bay, a food manufacturing and catering 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 Rabans Lane Industrial Estate or a smaller Aylesbury workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Rabans Lane Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Aylesbury university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Rabans Lane Industrial Estate and Gatehouse Industrial Area, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Buckinghamshire.
Commercial printing, food manufacturing and catering, light and advanced engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Rabans Lane Industrial Estate and Gatehouse Industrial Area and across the wider Buckinghamshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Aylesbury 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 Aylesbury, but a Rabans Lane Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Market Square canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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