Carlisle · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Carlisle workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Carlisle
Carlisle is the Great Border City in Cumbria, around 110,000, on the River Eden, with a Norman castle and cathedral and a long biscuit-making heritage.
The signature trade is food and drink manufacturing - the biscuit and food factories - alongside engineering and logistics on the M6 and West Coast Main Line, across the Kingstown Industrial Estate and Durranhill estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Carlisle 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 Kingstown Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Carlisle units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Carlisle and the rest of Cumbria it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Steam, flour-dust and mist extraction across the biscuit and food factories, a trade rooted in the town's Carr's heritage, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the engineering and manufacturing units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Battery-charging, weld-fume and paint extraction across the M6 distribution parks, where the maintenance bays need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Kingstown Industrial Estate and Durranhill units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Carlisle 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 the University of Cumbria and the Cumberland Infirmary, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Carlisle
We are out under Carlisle's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An agricultural fertiliser blending plant in Carlisle had deep chemical-scale pitting through the bagging-hopper canopy ducts, pulling in huge amounts of ambient air. We ran a full pitot-tube traverse and checked the static pressure across the corroded sections. It failed on the structural degradation, with a 35 percent loss of capture velocity at the bagging head. The pungent ammonia meant full chemical-vapour cartridge respirators throughout the test.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Carlisle 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 Kingstown 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 Carlisle line.
Where exposure is in question - a food and drink 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.
For most Carlisle sites - from the Kingstown Industrial Estate units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Carlisle 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 Carlisle duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Durranhill 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 food and drink manufacturing bay, an engineering and manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Food and drink manufacturing, engineering and manufacturing, logistics and distribution, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and infirmary - the trades clustered around Kingstown Industrial Estate and Durranhill and across the wider Cumbria.
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 Kingstown Industrial Estate or a smaller Carlisle workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Carlisle, but a Kingstown Industrial Estate fabrication shop and an English Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Kingstown Industrial Estate and Durranhill, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Cumbria.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Kingstown Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Carlisle 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 Carlisle 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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