Bramhall · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Bramhall workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Bramhall
Bramhall is one of the most prosperous suburbs on the southern edge of Greater Manchester, a leafy commuter and footballer belt of Edwardian villas and 1930s semis in the Stockport borough. Its pride is Bramall Hall, a magnificent black-and-white Tudor timber-framed manor set in seventy acres of parkland - one of the finest such houses in the North West, held by the Davenport family for roughly five hundred years.
Bramhall itself is overwhelmingly residential, so its working trade runs to retail, hospitality and the professions, but heavier engineering, food production and fabrication sit close by on the Bredbury and Stanley Green estates and around the old Woodford aerodrome, now Woodford Garden Village.
Each of those Bramhall 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 Bredbury Park Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Bramhall workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Bramhall and the wider Greater Manchester it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres across the Stockport engineering shops, in a district whose aerospace pedigree runs from the Woodford aerodrome where Avro completed 4,101 Lancaster bombers and every Vulcan built.
Steam canopies, flour-dust and CO2 control in the Bredbury food and drink plants, from the Allied Bakeries site to Robinsons, the family brewery founded at Stockport's Unicorn Inn in 1849 and now brewing from its new Bredbury plant.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the cabinet shops and joinery works serving Bramhall's conservation-area villas, 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 Bredbury Park and Stanley Green units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at the bodyshops and motor-trade units around Stockport. 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 laboratories and teaching spaces of the wider borough, including Stepping Hill Hospital at nearby Hazel Grove, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Bramhall
We are out under Bramhall's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A hair salon in Bramhall had airflow at its downdraught nail benches fall away since the last test, pointing to a worn fan impeller. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the benches, then sorted a loose joint before re-checking. Capture came back within benchmark once the leaking connection was dealt with, and we issued a compliance report for the HSE file. The work went in over a single overnight shift so the studio could open as normal.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Bramhall 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 Bredbury Park 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 Bramhall 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.
Across most Bramhall sites - the Bredbury Park Industrial Estate 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 Bramhall 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 Bramhall duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Stanley Green Business 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bredbury Park Industrial Estate and Stanley Green Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Bramhall, but a Bredbury Park Industrial Estate fabrication shop and an Ack Lane East canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Bredbury Park Industrial Estate and Stanley Green Business Park and across the wider Greater Manchester.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Bramhall 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. 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 Bredbury Park Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
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 Bredbury Park Industrial Estate or a smaller Bramhall workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Six miles from Bramhall at Woodford, the Avro company built one of the great aircraft factories of the twentieth century, assembling 4,101 Lancaster bombers in the Second World War and every one of the RAF's Vulcans, before the site finished its days building the Nimrod for BAE Systems and closed in 2011. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through the machine shops and fabrication units of the Stockport borough, 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.