Birmingham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Birmingham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Birmingham
Birmingham still makes things at scale - engineering and manufacturing employ more than 100,000 people here, over a quarter of the UK's advanced-engineering workforce.
The trades cluster where they always have. Tyseley and Aston run welding and steel fabrication; the Jewellery Quarter's roughly 300 independent manufacturers still make around 40% of the UK's jewellery, with the polishing dust and plating fume that go with fine metalwork; and the bodyshops, machine shops and joinery fill the estates between. Up to 60% of the UK's automotive research and development happens in and around the city.
Every one of those processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it: on-torch and fume-arm extraction, spray booths, oil-mist collectors, dust extraction, and the bench extraction over the jewellery and electronics benches.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and it is your evidence under COSHH.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Tyseley and Aston fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic, so the test record matters.
Oil-mist extraction on machining centres across the city's engineering shops. Mist collectors clog quietly; a measured face velocity is the only proof they still capture.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Birmingham bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Polishing-dust extraction and plating-fume control across the Jewellery Quarter - fine metal dust and acid fume that are easy to under-ventilate on small benches.
Dust extraction on saws, sanders and routers. Hardwood dust is a known carcinogen; ductwork and filters are checked for capture and leakage.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the universities, colleges and clinical labs across Birmingham, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Birmingham
We are out under Birmingham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The Magnehelic on a Birmingham bodyshop's downdraught booth was sitting in the red when we arrived, ceiling and floor filters both loaded with overspray. We ran airflow readings across the ceiling filters and the floor pits, checked the belt tension and the pressure differentials, and failed it on airflow - the filters were spent. The tell was the cardboard someone had taped across part of the floor extract to push suction up the other end. We had a word about that, and set out the filter swap it needed before a re-test.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Birmingham 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 Tyseley and Aston 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 Birmingham line.
Where exposure is in question - a Jewellery Quarter polishing 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 Birmingham sites 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Tyseley or Aston workshop 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 Tyseley welding bay, a Jewellery Quarter polishing shop and a bodyshop booth can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Birmingham site will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Birmingham 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. We plan testing around production shifts, term-time access at the University of Birmingham and Aston labs, and normal hours at the smaller Jewellery Quarter workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Welding and fabrication around Tyseley and Aston, CNC and metalwork, vehicle body and paint, the Jewellery Quarter's polishing and plating, woodworking and joinery, and the labs of the universities and hospitals.
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 Tyseley or Aston production line we can usually fit that re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure properly.
Yes - the industrial estates, workshops and university and hospital labs across Birmingham and the wider West Midlands.
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