Ayr · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Ayr workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Ayr
Ayr is the county town of Ayrshire, a royal burgh chartered by William the Lion in 1205 and home to around 47,000 people on the Firth of Clyde. It is a place whose story the world already knows - Robert Burns was born in the neighbouring village of Alloway in 1759, the medieval Auld Brig still carries walkers over the river Ayr, and Ayr Racecourse stages the Scottish Grand National every April.
Its working economy runs on engineering, food and drink and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the trade-counter and manufacturing units at Heathfield Industrial Estate and around Whitletts on the A77 edge of town.
Wherever an Ayr 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 Heathfield Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Ayr workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Ayr and the rest of Ayrshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres in the engineering units at Heathfield, and across the aerospace cluster on Ayr's doorstep at Prestwick, where Spirit AeroSystems and GE Caledonian work metal to fine tolerances.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and dairies of Ayrshire - the county that gave its name to the Ayrshire dairy cow and to Dunlop cheese, where food production still runs deep in the local economy.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Ayr 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 Heathfield and Whitletts units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Ayr bodyshops and the main dealerships clustered around Heathfield. 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 Ayr and the science labs of Ayrshire College and the University of the West of Scotland's Ayr campus, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Ayr
We are out under Ayr's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A well-known machine shop in Ayr had control dropping off at its CNC machines, the tool enclosures suffering from a fan that wasn't reaching its rated speed. We checked the static pressure, cleared a blocked filter and re-tested each point against benchmark. With an unsealed joint sealed up the capture came back within benchmark, and we left full test documentation along with a short photo report for the foreman's maintenance log.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On an Ayr 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 Heathfield 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 Ayr 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
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.
For most Ayr sites - from the Heathfield Industrial Estate units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Ayr 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 Ayr duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Whitletts 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.
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 Heathfield 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.
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 Ayr, but a Heathfield Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High 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 a Heathfield Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Ayr 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Heathfield Industrial Estate and Whitletts, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Ayrshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Heathfield Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Ayr university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
By 1300 Ayr was Scotland's principal port on the west coast, and over three hundred ships a year were working the harbour by 1777, trading timber and tobacco with North America. That maritime and engineering instinct carried into the modern age, and today it runs through the precision shops of Heathfield and the aerospace cluster on the town's doorstep at Prestwick, where firms such as Spirit AeroSystems and GE Caledonian work metal to fine tolerances. Every one of those workplaces 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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