Caerphilly · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Caerphilly workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Caerphilly
Caerphilly sits seven miles north of Cardiff at the mouth of the Rhymney Valley, a town of around forty thousand people guarded by the largest castle in Wales - a thirty-acre fortress that Gilbert de Clare raised from 1268 and that stands second in size in all Britain only to Windsor. It is a place the world already tastes as well as sees, being the birthplace of Caerphilly cheese, the crumbly white cheese first made to feed the valley's coal miners.
Its working economy still turns on manufacturing and the fabrication trades, led by the ventilation manufacturer Nuaire, which has built air-moving equipment in the town since 1966, and grouped in the units at the Western Industrial Estate and the Pant Glas Industrial Estate at Bedwas.
Every Caerphilly 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 Western Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Caerphilly units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Caerphilly and across Caerphilly it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, from Nuaire's ventilation plant on the Western Industrial Estate to the steel-lintel and building-product lines that Catnic built its name on in the town.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food plants of the Rhymney Valley, in a town whose native Caerphilly cheese once fed the coal miners of the coalfield above it.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Caerphilly cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it can reach the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Western Industrial Estate and the Pant Glas units at Bedwas. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Caerphilly bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the diagnostics maker BBI Solutions and the science laboratories at Coleg y Cymoedd, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Caerphilly
We are out under Caerphilly's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A traditional school woodwork room in Caerphilly had the extraction on its sanders pulling weakly, down to a poorly sealed duct joint. We checked the static pressure, made good the unsealed joint and re-tested each point against benchmark. One hood failed on that joint at first and passed once it was sorted, and we issued a thorough examination and test certificate along with a few tips for the workshop manager on keeping things clear.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Caerphilly 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 Western 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 Caerphilly 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 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
On most Caerphilly sites - the Western 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 Caerphilly 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 Caerphilly duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Pant Glas 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Caerphilly 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.
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 Western Industrial Estate and Pant Glas Industrial Estate and across the wider Caerphilly.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Western Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Caerphilly university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Western 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Western Industrial Estate and Pant Glas Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Caerphilly.
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 Western Industrial Estate or a smaller Caerphilly workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Nuaire has designed and built ventilation equipment in Caerphilly since 1966, and its plant on the Western Industrial Estate now covers some seventy-two thousand square metres and employs around five hundred people making the fans and air-handling units that move air through buildings across the country. That manufacturing instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and steel lines, 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. It is checked at the hood, along the duct and at the fan, and the result is recorded.
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