Brentwood · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Brentwood workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Brentwood
Brentwood is a commuter town of around fifty thousand people on the old London road into Essex, fifteen miles east of the City and long a first stop out of the capital. It carries a deep history for its size - a medieval pilgrimage chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket, Sir Antony Browne's grammar school of 1557, and the Essex Regiment's old depot at Warley Barracks - and a modern name too, as the setting the country came to know through reality television.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication and motor trades, much of it grouped in the units at Childerditch Industrial Park, Hutton Industrial Estate and the Warley Hill Business Park.
Wherever a Brentwood 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 Childerditch Industrial Park units down to the smallest Brentwood workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Brentwood and across Essex it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC machining centres in the units at Childerditch and West Horndon, in a town whose engineering culture grew up around Ford's headquarters at Warley and its research campus at Dunton.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, kitchens and food producers on the Hutton and Childerditch estates that supply Brentwood's shops and caterers.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Brentwood 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 Childerditch and Warley Hill units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Brentwood bodyshops, a fitting trade in Ford country. 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 science laboratories at Brentwood School and the town's testing and technical firms, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Brentwood
We are out under Brentwood's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A monumental mason's dust extraction in Brentwood had lost control at the cutting bench, the hoods let down by a fan that wasn't reaching its rated speed. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. Once a loose joint was sorted, every point passed on re-test, and we issued a thorough examination and test certificate. The work was scheduled for a Monday when the bay was closed.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Brentwood 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 Childerditch Industrial 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 Brentwood 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
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
For the great majority of Brentwood sites, from the Childerditch Industrial 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 Brentwood 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 Brentwood duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Warley Hill 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Brentwood 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Childerditch Industrial Park units, term-time access at the Brentwood 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 Brentwood, but a Childerditch Industrial Park fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Childerditch Industrial Park unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Childerditch Industrial Park and Warley Hill Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Essex.
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 Childerditch Industrial 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
Ford of Britain built its UK headquarters at Warley in the early 1960s, a deliberate replica of the company's Dearborn world office, and ran the site for fifty-five years until it closed in 2019. The marque's engineering still turns over at the Dunton technical campus a few miles south, opened by Harold Wilson in 1967 and now one of the largest automotive research centres in Europe. That engineering culture runs on through Brentwood's machine shops and fabrication units, 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.
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