Chatham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Chatham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Chatham
Chatham is a Medway town in Kent, part of a unitary area of around 280,000, home to the Historic Dockyard and four centuries of Royal Navy shipbuilding.
The heavy work is marine and engineering - the marine and naval engineering rooted in the dockyard heritage, the metal fabrication, and the logistics and vehicle trades - across the Medway City Estate and Gillingham Business Park, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Chatham processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Medway City Estate units to the smaller Chatham workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Chatham and the rest of Kent it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Weld-fume, grinding and paint extraction across the marine and naval-engineering units, a trade rooted in the Chatham Dockyard heritage, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture at source.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the fabrication and stockholding units, where metal dust and fume need capture proven.
Battery-charging, weld-fume and paint extraction across the Medway City Estate distribution units, where the maintenance bays need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Medway City Estate and Gillingham Business 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 Chatham 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 Universities at Medway and Medway Maritime Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Chatham
We are out under Chatham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A dockyard restoration shed in Chatham had the high-vacuum dust extraction on a timber sanding table pulling weak because the primary reverse-jet pulse line had disconnected. We re-attached the pneumatic poly-tube to the pulse-valve manifold, watched the filter drop recover and checked the suction. It passed once repaired, with the filter differential back in its normal running zone. The shed was restoring 18th-century ship timbers, and the dust held historic lead-paint residue, so full respiratory PPE was worn.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Chatham 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 Medway City 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 Chatham line.
Where exposure is in question - a marine and naval engineering 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 Chatham sites - the Medway City 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 Chatham 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 Chatham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Gillingham 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 marine and naval engineering bay, a 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 Medway City Estate or a smaller Chatham 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 Medway City Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Marine and naval engineering, metal fabrication, logistics and distribution, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the universities and hospital - the trades clustered around Medway City Estate and Gillingham Business Park and across the wider Kent.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Medway City Estate units, term-time access at the Chatham 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 Chatham, but a Medway City Estate fabrication shop and a Chatham High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Chatham 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.
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