Basingstoke · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Basingstoke workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Basingstoke
Basingstoke is an M3-corridor town of around 113,000 with a strong technology, pharma and security-printing base - De La Rue has printed banknotes here for decades.
The work is technology and manufacturing - the security printing and pharma R&D, the electronics and engineering, and the food and fabrication units - across the Houndmills and Chineham estates, with the bodyshops and distribution between them.
Wherever a Basingstoke 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 Houndmills units down to the smallest Basingstoke 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 Basingstoke and the wider Hampshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Solvent, ink-mist and vapour extraction on the print and security-printing lines, where solvent fume needs capture at the bench.
Fume-cupboard and containment extraction across the pharma and R&D units, where capture at source is the whole control measure.
Solder-fume, oil-mist and dust extraction on the electronics and engineering lines, where fine dust and fume need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Houndmills and Chineham units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Basingstoke bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Dust, steam and fume-cupboard extraction across the food producers and labs, where organic dust and vapour need capture at source.
On the ground in Basingstoke
We are out under Basingstoke's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A commercial printing press in Basingstoke had a solvent-vapour hood over the ink-mixing bench with its inline exhaust fan running in reverse after an electrical upgrade. We checked the fan rotation, confirmed the reversed wiring phase and documented the face-velocity drop with a smoke pen. It failed on the flow reversal - it was actively blowing fumes into the operator's breathing zone. The floor runs 24/7, so we had to time the test into a narrow ink-colour changeover.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Basingstoke 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 Houndmills 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 Basingstoke line.
Where exposure is in question - a printing and security printing 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.
On most Basingstoke sites - the Houndmills units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Basingstoke 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 Basingstoke duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Chineham 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 printing and security printing bay, a pharma and r&d 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 Houndmills or a smaller Basingstoke workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Basingstoke, but a Houndmills fabrication shop and a Wote Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Printing and security printing, pharma and R&D, electronics and engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the food producers and labs - the trades clustered around Houndmills and Chineham and across the wider Hampshire.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Houndmills and Chineham, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Hampshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Houndmills units, term-time access at the Basingstoke 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 Houndmills 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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