Bangor · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bangor workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bangor
Bangor is the oldest city in Wales and one of the smallest cities in Britain, a cathedral and university city set at the northern mouth of the Menai Strait, looking across to Anglesey. Its cathedral traces back to a monastic foundation by Saint Deiniol in the sixth century, and its High Street is traditionally claimed as the longest in Wales.
Its working economy leans on Bangor University and Ysbyty Gwynedd, on the construction and timber trades, and on the light-industrial and fabrication units grouped at Llandygai Industrial Estate and Parc Bryn Cegin on the A5 edge of the city.
Every Bangor process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Llandygai Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Bangor units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Bangor and across Gwynedd it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC machines and turning centres in the workshops at Llandygai Industrial Estate and Parc Bryn Cegin, where fine metalworking-fluid mist has to be drawn off at the tool.
Steam canopies, oven-bay and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food-production units that supply Bangor and the wider Gwynedd trade, keeping airborne dust and heat under control on the line.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bangor timber and joinery works such as Snowdon Timber Products at Llandygai, where hardwood, softwood and MDF dust is captured at the saw before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the fabrication units at Llandygai Industrial Estate and Parc Bryn Cegin. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bangor bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the Bangor University science schools, from the ocean-sciences and marine laboratories on the Menai Strait to the biosciences benches, and for the pathology and clinical labs at Ysbyty Gwynedd, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bangor
We are out under Bangor's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a Bangor MOT garage, the tailpipe extraction reels had been pulling less air than at the previous test, and a leaking flexible connection turned out to be the reason. We logged fresh benchmark readings, checked capture visually at each hood and cleared the blocked filter, though access was tight enough that we ended up loading kit in through the back to reach the far end. A slipping belt was the last thing to sort, and once that was done every point passed on re-test. The LEV report went straight into the client's COSHH file.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Bangor 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 Llandygai 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 a Bangor 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.
Across most Bangor sites - the Llandygai 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 Bangor 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 Bangor duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Parc Bryn Cegin 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.
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 Bangor, but a Llandygai Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Deiniol Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Llandygai Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bangor university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Llandygai 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Llandygai Industrial Estate and Parc Bryn Cegin, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Gwynedd.
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 Llandygai Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Llandygai Industrial Estate and Parc Bryn Cegin and across the wider Gwynedd.
Local knowledge
Large-scale quarrying began at the Penrhyn Quarry above Bangor in 1770 under Richard Pennant, and within a century it had grown into the largest slate working in the world, employing around three thousand men. That heavy-industrial instinct still runs through Bangor's engineering and fabrication units at Llandygai and Parc Bryn Cegin, 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.