Chesterfield · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Chesterfield workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a Derbyshire market town of around 104,000 on the edge of the Peak District, famous for the Crooked Spire and its heavy-engineering heritage.
The work is engineering and manufacturing - the heavy engineering rooted in the town's railway and mining-equipment past, the advanced manufacturing, and the chemical and food trades - across the Broombank and Markham Vale estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Chesterfield 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 Broombank units down to the smallest Chesterfield workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Chesterfield and across Derbyshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the engineering and manufacturing units, a trade rooted in Chesterfield's railway and mining-equipment heritage, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Weld-fume, machining-mist and paint extraction across the advanced-manufacturing lines, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture proven.
Vapour, dust and steam extraction across the chemical and food producers, where process vapour and organic dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Broombank and Markham Vale units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Chesterfield 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 Chesterfield College and Chesterfield Royal Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Chesterfield
We are out under Chesterfield's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A foundry and pattern-making shop in Chesterfield had a sand-reclamation shaking-screen LEV pulling zero capture because the main exhaust-stack flapper valve on the roof had rusted shut. We climbed to the roof deck, freed the rusted damper with penetrating lubricant and verified the transport velocities. It passed once the flapper was freed, with the velocity at a safe 22 metres per second, instantly clearing the localised sand clouds. The legacy foundry was loud, so hand signals and radio headsets coordinated the roof and shop floor.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Chesterfield 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 Broombank 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 Chesterfield line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and manufacturing 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.
Across most Chesterfield sites - the Broombank plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Chesterfield 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 Chesterfield duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Markham Vale 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 engineering and manufacturing bay, an advanced manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Engineering and manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, chemicals and food manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Broombank and Markham Vale and across the wider Derbyshire.
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 Broombank 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 Chesterfield, but a Broombank fabrication shop and a Chatsworth Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Broombank units, term-time access at the Chesterfield university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Chesterfield 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.
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 Broombank unit will ask to see.
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