Cheshunt · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Cheshunt workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Cheshunt
Cheshunt is a Hertfordshire town in the borough of Broxbourne, around 44,000, on the River Lea, long the home of Tesco's head office and neighbour to the Lee Valley White Water Centre of the London 2012 Games.
The work is logistics and food - the Lea Valley distribution, the food manufacturing and the glasshouse-horticulture heritage, and the light engineering and print - across the Delamare Road and Brookfield estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Cheshunt 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 Delamare Road units down to the smallest Cheshunt workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Cheshunt and the wider Hertfordshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Battery-charging, weld-fume and paint extraction across the Lea Valley distribution parks off the A10 and M25, where the maintenance and fabrication bays need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food producers of the Lea Valley, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Machining, solvent-vapour and ink-mist extraction across the light-engineering and printing units, where dust, fume and vapour need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Delamare Road and Brookfield units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Cheshunt 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 Hertford Regional College and the area hospitals, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Cheshunt
We are out under Cheshunt's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A Lea Valley distribution depot in Cheshunt had a battery-charging bay with the overhead hydrogen-vent extraction running weak because a flexible connector had pulled off the trunking above the racks. We reconnected the ducting, ran a smoke test over the charging shelves and measured the extract rate at the roof. It failed on the disconnected run and passed once resealed, the vent flow back above the design figure. The bay ran a large fleet of trucks, so we cordoned the aisle and worked to the site traffic plan.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Cheshunt 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 Delamare Road 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 Cheshunt line.
Where exposure is in question - a logistics and distribution 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.
For most Cheshunt sites - from the Delamare Road 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 Cheshunt 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 Cheshunt duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Brookfield 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 logistics and distribution bay, a food manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Delamare Road unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Delamare Road units, term-time access at the Cheshunt university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Delamare Road and Brookfield, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Hertfordshire.
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 Delamare Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Cheshunt, but a Delamare Road fabrication shop and an Old Pond canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Cheshunt 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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