Chard · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Chard workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Chard
Chard is the southernmost and one of the highest towns in Somerset, home to around 14,000, a lace-making heritage town and the birthplace of powered flight, where the first powered aircraft flew in 1848.
The signature trade is manufacturing - the advanced manufacturing and injection moulding, the engineering and metal fabrication, and the food and drink manufacturing - across the Millfield Industrial Estate and Furnham Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Chard 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 Millfield Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Chard workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Chard and the rest of Somerset it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Moulding-fume, granulator-dust and assembly-fume extraction across the injection-moulding and assembly cells of the town's largest manufacturer, where hot moulding and granulating need capture at source.
Weld-fume, grinding-dust and cutting-fluid-mist extraction across the engineering and fabrication units of the trading estates, where metal fume and mist need capture proven.
Cooking-fume, steam and oven-fume extraction across the food-production and chilled units, carrying the town's food-manufacturing base, where the cooklines need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Millfield Industrial Estate and Furnham Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Chard 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 local college and the Chard Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Chard
We are out under Chard's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An injection-moulding and assembly plant in Chard had a moulding-fume and granulator-dust extraction over a moulding cell pulling weak, letting process fume and plastic dust drift into the shop. We measured the capture at the machines and checked the ducting and fan for losses. It failed on the low capture and the fume breakthrough, and we specified the remedial work. The cell ran hot moulding and granulating, so the fume and dust monitoring backed up the airflow test.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Chard system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Millfield 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 Chard line.
Where exposure is in question - an advanced manufacturing and injection moulding process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Chard sites - the Millfield 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 Chard 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 Chard duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Furnham Road Trading 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. An advanced manufacturing and injection moulding bay, an engineering and metal fabrication bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Millfield Industrial Estate or a smaller Chard 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 Millfield 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Chard 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.
Advanced manufacturing and injection moulding, engineering and metal fabrication, food and drink manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Millfield Industrial Estate and Furnham Road Trading Estate and across the wider Somerset.
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 Chard, but a Millfield Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Fore Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Millfield Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Chard university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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