Chelmsford · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Chelmsford workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Chelmsford
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex and the birthplace of radio, a city of around 181,000 where Marconi opened the world's first wireless factory.
The signature work is electronics and precision engineering - the semiconductor and electronics manufacture with its soldering and conformal coating, the food processing and seasoning, and the engineering and fabrication - across the Widford and Waterhouse Lane estates, with the bodyshops and labs among them.
Wherever a Chelmsford 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 Widford units down to the smallest Chelmsford workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Chelmsford employers and others across Essex it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Solder-fume, solvent and conformal-coating extraction across the semiconductor and electronics lines, a trade rooted in Chelmsford radio heritage, where fume needs capture at source.
Spice-dust, steam and mist extraction across the food-processing and seasoning lines, where fine powder is both a health and a combustion risk.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the precision-engineering and fabrication units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Widford and Waterhouse Lane units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Chelmsford 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 Anglia Ruskin University and Broomfield Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Chelmsford
We are out under Chelmsford's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A food-processing and seasoning plant in Chelmsford had a canopy hood over a dry spice hopper drawing far too little air - fine paprika powder had completely blinded the cartridge filters. We triggered the reverse-jet cleaning system through several cycles, watched the pressure drop recover and re-tested the hood face velocity. It passed once the filters cleared, with capture back to a stable 0.7 metres per second. The spice was so fine and airborne that full-face positive-pressure respirators were needed to take the readings.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Chelmsford 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 Widford 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 Chelmsford line.
Where exposure is in question - an electronics and semiconductors 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.
For the great majority of Chelmsford sites, from the Widford 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 Chelmsford 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 Chelmsford duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Waterhouse Lane 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 electronics and semiconductors bay, a food processing and seasoning 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 Widford or a smaller Chelmsford workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Widford units, term-time access at the Chelmsford university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Widford and Waterhouse Lane, 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 Widford 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 Chelmsford 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.
Electronics and semiconductors, food processing and seasoning, precision engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Widford and Waterhouse Lane and across the wider Essex.
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