Berkhamsted · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Berkhamsted workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Berkhamsted
Berkhamsted is an affluent Hertfordshire market town of around 23,000 people, set in the Bulbourne Valley in the Chilterns where the Grand Union Canal and the West Coast Main Line run side by side along the valley floor. Its ruined motte-and-bailey castle is where Ealdred, Archbishop of York, surrendered to William the Conqueror in 1066, and the town's grammar school has taught here since John Incent founded it in 1541.
Its working economy still leans on the light-industrial and fabrication trades that grew up beside the canal, much of it grouped in the units on Northbridge Road at Northchurch and the modern River Park sheds off Billet Lane.
Wherever a Berkhamsted 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 Northbridge Road units down to the smallest Berkhamsted workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Berkhamsted employers and others across Hertfordshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning cells in the Northbridge Road and River Park units, where fine airborne mist has to be captured at the machine before it reaches the shop floor.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Berkhamsted's bakeries and kitchens, carrying on a food-and-drink trade that once included the town's canal-side breweries.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Berkhamsted cabinet shops and joinery works, a direct descendant of the timber trade that made the town, when Key's Timber Yard unloaded Canadian baulks off the canal by hand.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Northbridge Road and River Park units. Since the HSE reclassification of 2019, all welding fume, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at local 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 science laboratories at Berkhamsted School and the town's teaching and research benches, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Berkhamsted
We are out under Berkhamsted's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The downdraught nail benches at a busy Berkhamsted hair salon were pulling less than at their last test, and a build-up of debris in the ducting was behind it. We logged benchmark readings, checked capture at each hood and cleared the ducting out. On re-test the downdraught benches all passed. We timed the whole visit for half-term while the salon was quiet, and the LEV report went into the COSHH file.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Berkhamsted 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 Northbridge Road 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 Berkhamsted 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.
For most Berkhamsted sites - from the Northbridge Road 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 Berkhamsted 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 Berkhamsted duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the River Park 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.
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 Northbridge Road and River Park and across the wider Hertfordshire.
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 Berkhamsted, but a Northbridge Road fabrication shop and a Castle Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Northbridge Road and River Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Hertfordshire.
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 Northbridge Road or a smaller Berkhamsted workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Northbridge Road units, term-time access at the Berkhamsted university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Berkhamsted 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.
Local knowledge
The Grand Junction Canal reached Berkhamsted in 1798, and Castle Wharf, the town's port on the water between Ravens Lane and Castle Street, drew timber yards, boat builders, breweries and chemical works that employed more than seven hundred people. That fabrication-and-manufacturing instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and light-industrial units, 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.
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