Chippenham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Chippenham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Chippenham
Chippenham, in Wiltshire, is a historic market town of around 36,500 on the River Avon, a Saxon royal settlement linked to Alfred the Great, now a manufacturing and commuter town on the Great Western main line.
The signature trade is engineering - the rail-signalling and advanced engineering, the furniture manufacturing, and the plastics and pipe manufacturing - across the Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate and Methuen Park estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Chippenham 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 Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate units to the smaller Chippenham 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 Chippenham and the rest of Wiltshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Solder-fume, electronics-assembly and machining-mist extraction across the rail-signalling and control-systems lines, a trade the town has run since 1897, where solder fume carries a respiratory sensitiser and needs capture at source.
Spray-finishing vapour, adhesive-fume and wood-dust extraction across the furniture manufacturing and EMEA lines, where finishing, foam and woodworking each need capture proven.
Extrusion-fume, welding-vapour and process-dust extraction across the plastic-pipe and moulding units, where the extrusion and welding lines need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate and Methuen 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 Chippenham 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 Wiltshire College and the Chippenham Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Chippenham
We are out under Chippenham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A rail-signalling manufacturing plant in Chippenham had a solder-fume extraction over an electronics-assembly line pulling weak, letting solder fume drift into the assembly area. We measured the capture at the line and checked the extraction arms and ducting for losses. It failed on the low capture and the fume breakthrough, and we specified the remedial work. Solder fume carries a respiratory sensitiser, so the capture at each station was checked against the line's throughput.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Chippenham 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 Bumpers Farm Industrial 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 Chippenham line.
Where exposure is in question - a rail-signalling and advanced 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.
For the great majority of Chippenham sites, from the Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate 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 Chippenham 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 Chippenham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Methuen 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 rail-signalling and advanced engineering bay, a furniture manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Chippenham 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.
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 Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate or a smaller Chippenham 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 Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Chippenham university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bumpers Farm Industrial Estate and Methuen Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Wiltshire.
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