Brecon · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Brecon workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Brecon
Brecon (Aberhonddu) is the historic county town of Breconshire, a market town of around 8,000 people set where the River Honddu meets the Usk. Its cathedral crowns the town and it is the northern gateway to Bannau Brycheiniog, the Brecon Beacons National Park.
Its working trades cluster on Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate on the western edge of town and at Brecon Enterprise Park, mixing joinery, vehicle repair, agricultural engineering and light fabrication.
Every Brecon process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Brecon units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Brecon employers and others across Powys it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Sawdust and MDF-dust extraction for Brecon's joinery and cabinet shops, including the workshops off Ffrwdgrech Road. Hardwood dust is a recognised carcinogen, so the LEV at each saw and sander is tested to keep airborne levels in check.
Weld-fume and grinding extraction for the farm-machinery and plant workshops that serve rural Powys. Repair bays cutting and welding steel need capture at the arc, not just general ventilation.
Flour-dust extraction for the town's bakeries and food producers. Flour and improver dust is a leading cause of occupational asthma, so dough-room LEV is checked to hold the airborne count down.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate and Brecon Enterprise Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Brecon 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 Brecon Beacons College and Brecon War Memorial Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Brecon
We are out under Brecon's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An MOT garage in Brecon had lost control at the exhaust bay, with the weld-fume arms affected by a poorly sealed duct joint. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the weld-fume arms, sealed the joint and cleared a blocked filter, then re-checked each point. Capture came back within benchmark once the joint was sealed, and we issued full test documentation.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Brecon 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 Ffrwdgrech 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 Brecon 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
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.
For the great majority of Brecon sites, from the Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate 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 Brecon 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 Brecon duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Brecon Enterprise 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 joinery and woodworking bay, an agricultural and plant engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
joinery shops, agricultural engineers, bakeries, welding and fabrication bays, vehicle bodyshops, and college and hospital fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate and Brecon Enterprise Park and across the wider Powys.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate and Brecon Enterprise Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Powys.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Brecon university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Brecon 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.
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 Ffrwdgrech Industrial Estate or a smaller Brecon workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Ffrwdgrech 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.
Local knowledge
Brecon Cathedral began as the Benedictine priory church of St John the Evangelist, founded around 1093 after Bernard de Neufmarche took the Welsh kingdom of Brycheiniog; it became a cathedral only in 1923 with the new diocese of Swansea and Brecon. Nine centuries of masons and craftsmen worked its stone. The metalworkers and fabricators around the town carry the same craft today, and their welding fume needs on-torch extraction tested to prove it clears the air they breathe.
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