Bloxwich · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bloxwich workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bloxwich
Bloxwich is a large town on the northern edge of Walsall in the West Midlands, recorded in the Domesday Book as Blochescwic, 'Bloc's settlement', with a lorimer working here as early as 1523. Its name once travelled the world on the point of an awl blade - Bloxwich was reputed to make more and finer awl blades than anywhere else in the United Kingdom - and its bit, stirrup and buckle makers, the famous 'Bloxwich bits', supplied the saddlers of Walsall and the loriners' trade for centuries.
That metal-bashing instinct still runs through the town's engineering, pressing and fabrication shops, many of them grouped in the units off Reservoir Place, the Leamore Industrial Estate and the Fryers Road works, where firms such as Paddock Fabrications and UK Pressings still cut, press and weld steel.
Each of those Bloxwich processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Reservoir Place units to the one-bench Bloxwich workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Bloxwich employers and others across West Midlands it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the lathes, presses and CNC centres of Bloxwich's engineering shops, direct descendants of the bit, buckle and lock forges that White's Directory counted by the dozen here in 1834.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food factories and packing halls of the Leamore and Fryers Road estates, where production lines run extraction through every shift.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Bloxwich joinery and cabinet 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 fabrication units off Fryers Road and the Leamore Industrial Estate. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bloxwich bodyshops and MOT workshops. 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 college science rooms and the quality laboratories of local manufacturers across the Walsall area, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bloxwich
We are out under Bloxwich's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Capture velocity at some of the tip extraction nozzles on a refurbished electronics bench in Bloxwich had dropped below benchmark, with a filter well overdue for replacement. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the nozzles, sorted a loose joint and re-checked each point. Everything passed on re-test once the joint was dealt with, and we issued a compliance report for the HSE file. The supervisor booked a regular annual visit on the spot.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Bloxwich system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Reservoir Place 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 Bloxwich 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.
Across most Bloxwich sites - the Reservoir Place 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 Bloxwich 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 Bloxwich duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Leamore 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Reservoir Place units, term-time access at the Bloxwich university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Bloxwich, but a Reservoir Place fabrication shop and an Elmore Green Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Reservoir Place production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Reservoir Place and Leamore Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
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 Reservoir Place 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 Reservoir Place and Leamore Industrial Estate and across the wider West Midlands.
Local knowledge
By the eighteenth century Bloxwich had made itself the awl-blade capital of Britain, and its cottage forges turned out bridle bits, stirrups, buckle tongues, plane irons and cabinet locks by the cartload - White's Directory of 1834 alone counted eighty bit-makers, sixteen lock-makers and eleven stirrup-makers in the town. The 'Bloxwich bits' that shod the horse, and the loriners' work that fed the Walsall saddlery trade, were forged, filed and hardened in workshops that filled the air with metal dust and quenching smoke. That precision-metal instinct still runs through the engineering and pressing shops off Reservoir Place and the Leamore Industrial Estate, and every one carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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