Deal · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Deal workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Deal
Deal is a historic seaside town on the east Kent coast, home to around thirty thousand people and a former limb of the Cinque Ports, whose open shingle beach is where Julius Caesar is thought to have landed his legions in 55 BC. Henry VIII raised its great artillery castle here in 1539 to guard the Downs anchorage, and generations of Deal boatmen made their living off the treacherous Goodwin Sands just offshore.
Its working economy today runs on light engineering, the fabrication and building trades and the life-sciences cluster on its doorstep, much of it grouped in the units at Betteshanger Business Park on the old colliery site and the Southwall Industrial Estate.
Wherever a Deal 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 Betteshanger Business Park units down to the smallest Deal 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 Deal employers and others across Kent it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres in the units at Southwall Industrial Estate and Betteshanger Business Park, and in the workshops that feed the East Kent life-sciences and engineering supply chains.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and seafood-handling kitchens that a fishing town like Deal has always relied on, where extraction has to clear moisture and airborne dust at the source.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Deal cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Betteshanger and Southwall units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Deal and Walmer 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 the life-sciences and research laboratories at Discovery Park in nearby Sandwich, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Deal
We are out under Deal's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The tailpipe extraction reels at an MOT garage in Deal had been losing airflow since their last test, which we tracked to a worn fan impeller. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. Once a loose joint was cleared the system met control standards, and the benchmark readings were logged and reported. We took it on the workshop's weekly closed day.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Deal 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 Betteshanger Business Park 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 Deal line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision 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 Deal sites - the Betteshanger Business Park 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 Deal 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 Deal duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Southwall Industrial Estate 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 precision engineering and manufacturing bay, a food and drink production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Betteshanger Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Betteshanger Business Park or a smaller Deal workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Betteshanger Business Park units, term-time access at the Deal 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 Betteshanger Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Betteshanger Business Park and Southwall Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Betteshanger Business Park and Southwall Industrial Estate and across the wider Kent.
Local knowledge
Betteshanger Colliery, sunk in the 1920s, grew into the largest pit in the Kent coalfield and worked coal until 1989 before the site was reclaimed as a country park and business estate. That heavy-industry heritage still runs through Deal's machine shops and fabrication units, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures. From a single downdraught bench to a full booth, the numbers have to hold.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.