Blackwood · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Blackwood workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Blackwood
Blackwood sits on the Sirhowy River in the South Wales Valleys, a planned village laid out in the early 1800s by colliery owner John Hodder Moggridge as 'Coedduon', and a place whose name the wider world knows for one thing above all - the Manic Street Preachers formed here in 1986 and cut their teeth on the stage of the Blackwood Miners' Institute.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, manufacturing and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Oakdale Business Park - built on the reclaimed 400-acre plateau of the old Oakdale Colliery - and the neighbouring Pen-y-Fan Industrial Estate.
Wherever a Blackwood 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 Oakdale Business Park units down to the smallest Blackwood workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Blackwood and the rest of Caerphilly it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres across Oakdale Business Park and the Pen-y-Fan estate, from Senior Flexonics through to the precision shops that grew up as the Sirhowy Valley moved off coal and into engineering.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food units around Blackwood and Pontllanfraith, where powders and vapour are captured at source before they reach the air workers breathe.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Blackwood cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Oakdale Business Park and Pen-y-Fan Industrial 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 Blackwood 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 the lab and life-science employers on the Pen-y-Fan estate, including Thermo Fisher Scientific and BBI Group, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Blackwood
We are out under Blackwood's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The bench capture hoods at a local Blackwood agricultural engineering workshop were under-performing against benchmark, with a poorly sealed duct joint at the root of it. We logged benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with the loose joint. The system met control standards once the joint was sealed and the worn impeller freed, and we issued a signed report. The visit ran on a Monday while the unit was closed.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Blackwood 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 Oakdale Business Park 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 Blackwood 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
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
For the great majority of Blackwood sites, from the Oakdale Business Park units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Blackwood 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 Blackwood duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Pen-y-Fan Industrial 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 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.
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 an Oakdale Business Park 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 Oakdale Business Park and Pen-y-Fan Industrial Estate and across the wider Caerphilly.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Oakdale Business Park units, term-time access at the Blackwood university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Oakdale Business Park or a smaller Blackwood workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Oakdale Business Park and Pen-y-Fan Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Caerphilly.
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 an Oakdale Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Local knowledge
The Sirhowy Ironworks was raised nearby in 1797 by Samuel Homfray and his partners, and the coke it demanded turned the whole valley over to coal, with Oakdale Colliery sunk by the Tredegar Iron and Coal Company early in the twentieth century. That colliery site is now the reclaimed plateau of Oakdale Business Park, and the engineering shops that took the pits' place carry the same duty to control the mist, fume and dust their work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard the regulations set, so the extraction reads true against its design figures. It is the modern echo of a valley that always lived by moving air and fire safely underground.
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