Barry · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Barry workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Barry
Barry is a South Wales town of around 57,000 in the Vale of Glamorgan, which grew around Barry Docks - once the largest coal-exporting port in the world - and is now a seaside resort and chemicals centre made famous by Gavin and Stacey.
The signature trade is chemicals and port industry - the silicones and specialty-chemicals manufacturing, the port and process industry, and the food manufacturing and seaside hospitality - across the Palmerston Trading Estate and Atlantic Trading Estate estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Barry 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 Palmerston Trading Estate units down to the smallest Barry workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Barry and the wider South Wales it is your evidence under COSHH.
Process-vapour, siloxane-fume and reactor extraction across the silicones and specialty-chemicals lines, one of the town's largest employers, where the chemical vapour needs capture at source under containment.
Bulk-handling dust, weld-fume and cutting-fume extraction across the dockside process and recycling plants, where materials handling and fabrication each need their own capture.
Steam, cooking-fume and canopy-grease extraction across the food processors of the trading estates and the seaside kitchens of Barry Island, where process fume and fryer grease each need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Palmerston Trading Estate and Atlantic Trading Estate units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Barry 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 Cardiff and Vale College and Barry Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Barry
We are out under Barry's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A silicones-and-chemicals plant in Barry had a process-vapour extraction over a specialty-manufacturing line letting a vapour escape because a section of the branch ducting had corroded through. We ran the capture checks on the sound branches and logged the structural failure. It failed on the corroded duct and the vapour breakthrough, and we handed the specification to a ducting contractor. It was a controlled process area, so vapour monitoring and full PPE were carried throughout.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Barry 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 Palmerston Trading 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 Barry line.
Where exposure is in question - a silicones and specialty chemicals 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 Barry sites - the Palmerston Trading 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 Barry 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 Barry duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Atlantic Trading Estate 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 silicones and specialty chemicals bay, a port and process industry 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 Barry, but a Palmerston Trading Estate fabrication shop and a Holton Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Silicones and specialty chemicals, port and process industry, food manufacturing and seaside hospitality, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Palmerston Trading Estate and Atlantic Trading Estate and across the wider South Wales.
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 Palmerston Trading Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Palmerston Trading Estate units, term-time access at the Barry university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Palmerston Trading Estate and Atlantic Trading Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider South Wales.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Barry 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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