Bodmin · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bodmin workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bodmin
Bodmin, the former county town of Cornwall, sits at the western edge of Bodmin Moor with a population of around 17,000. It is Cornwall's only sizeable inland town, a road hub where the A30 and A38 meet.
Its working trades - steel fabrication, vehicle repair, joinery and light engineering - cluster on the Callywith Gate and Cooksland industrial estates off the Launceston Road, feeding the A30 corridor.
Every one of those Bodmin 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 - from the Callywith Gate Industrial Estate units to the smaller Bodmin workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Bodmin and the wider Cornwall it is your evidence under COSHH.
Saw benches, sanders and CNC routers throwing hardwood and MDF dust across Bodmin's joinery shops. LEV on each machine is checked so the fine dust that COSHH treats as a carcinogen is captured at source, not left to settle.
Oil-mist and coolant extraction over lathes and mills on Cooksland and Callywith Gate. Metalworking fluid mist is a recognised cause of occupational lung disease, so capture hoods are tested to the airflow the work needs.
Grinding, cutting and welding on farm machinery and plant across this rural district. Portable and fixed extraction is examined so the dust and fume off a repair bench is drawn away from the operator.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Callywith Gate and Cooksland units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Bodmin 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 Callywith College and Bodmin Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bodmin
We are out under Bodmin's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A dental laboratory in Bodmin had the control at its polishing station drop off, the bench extract nozzles let down by a poorly sealed duct joint. We ran a full thorough examination and test - velocity readings, smoke visualisation and a filter check - and sealed the joint. The system met its control standards on re-test, and we issued the examination certificate. The lab ground alloy and acrylic, so the dust capture was checked at each nozzle.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Bodmin 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 Callywith Gate Industrial Estate 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 Bodmin line.
Where exposure is in question - a joinery and woodworking 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.
On most Bodmin sites - the Callywith Gate Industrial Estate 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 Bodmin 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 Bodmin duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Cooksland 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 joinery and woodworking bay, an engineering and machine shops 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 a Callywith Gate Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Callywith Gate Industrial Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Callywith Gate Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Bodmin 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 Bodmin, but a Callywith Gate Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Fore Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bodmin 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.
joinery and woodworking, engineering and machine shops, agricultural and plant engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and labs and fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Callywith Gate Industrial Estate and Cooksland Industrial Estate and across the wider Cornwall.
Local knowledge
Bodmin was Cornwall's county town until the new county council chose Truro in 1889, with the assize courts following it east a century on. That civic history left a working town of yards and workshops rather than a resort seafront. The same practical grain runs through the LEV work here: local engineering-control testing to COSHH schedules, so the dust, mist and fume drawn off a Bodmin bench is measured at the hood and proven to move, not merely assumed.
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