Chepstow · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Chepstow workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Chepstow
Chepstow is the gateway town to the Wye Valley, a Monmouthshire market town of around 12,000 people where the tidal River Wye meets the Severn. Its Norman castle, medieval Port Wall and the racecourse that stages the Welsh Grand National give it a profile well above its size.
The town's working economy runs largely on the Newhouse Farm and Bulwark industrial estates - steel fabrication, engineering, vehicle work, food distribution and joinery - alongside the kitchens and hospitality that feed residents, visitors and racecourse crowds.
Every Chepstow 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 Newhouse Farm plant to the single-bench Chepstow 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 Chepstow and across Monmouthshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Fine hardwood dust from the town's joinery and cabinet workshops is classed as a carcinogen, so saw benches and sanders need ducted extraction. Capture hoods and filters are tested to keep airborne wood dust below the workplace exposure limit.
The engineering units on Newhouse Farm and Bulwark run lathes and CNC beds that throw oil mist and metalworking-fluid aerosol. Enclosure extraction and mist collectors are checked so operators are not breathing recirculated coolant.
Flour dust is one of the commonest causes of occupational asthma, and Chepstow's bakeries and food units handle it daily. Extracted mixing bays and dust hoods are examined so exposure stays inside the limit.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Newhouse Farm and Bulwark units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Chepstow 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 Coleg Gwent and Chepstow Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Chepstow
We are out under Chepstow's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A welding bay in Chepstow had lost control at the fabrication bench, with the fume-extraction arms affected by a worn fan impeller. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter, then carried out the remedial work. One point failed at first on a slipping belt and passed once the belt was replaced, and we logged and reported the benchmark readings.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Chepstow system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Newhouse Farm 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 Chepstow line.
Where exposure is in question - a joinery and woodworking process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
For the great majority of Chepstow sites, from the Newhouse Farm 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 Chepstow 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 Chepstow duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Bulwark 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 joinery and woodworking bay, an engineering and machining bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Newhouse Farm and Bulwark, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Monmouthshire.
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 Chepstow, but a Newhouse Farm fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
joinery and woodworking, engineering and machining, bakeries and food production, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and lab fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Newhouse Farm and Bulwark and across the wider Monmouthshire.
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 Newhouse Farm production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. Each hood is labelled with its status and next-due date, and you get the HSG258 report and system schematic for your COSHH file - the record an HSE inspector visiting a Newhouse Farm unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Newhouse Farm units, term-time access at the Chepstow university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Chepstow Castle, begun in 1067 by William FitzOsbern, is the oldest surviving stone-built post-Roman castle in Britain, and its great wooden doors are the oldest castle doors in Europe. That kind of endurance came from getting the engineering right and then maintaining it. Local exhaust ventilation works the same way: a fume arm or dust hood only protects the person at the bench if it is tested, adjusted and kept moving air to its design figure, which is exactly what our LEV inspections confirm.
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