Dudley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Dudley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Dudley
Dudley is the capital of the Black Country, a metropolitan borough of around 332,000 built on centuries of metalworking, forging and glassmaking.
The signature trades are metal and glass - the forging, casting and metal finishing, the Stourbridge glass quarter, and the powder coating and plating - across the Pensnett estate and the Peartree Lane works, with the fabrication and bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Dudley 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 Pensnett units down to the smallest Dudley workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Dudley and the rest of West Midlands it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Fume and grinding extraction across the forging, casting and metal-stockholding trades, where heavy metal fume and dust need capture at source.
Dust and furnace-fume extraction over the Stourbridge glass and studio-glass lines, where mineral dust and hot fume need capture at source.
Booth and recovery extraction over powder coating, blasting and plating, where fine powder and acid mist need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Pensnett and Peartree Lane units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Dudley 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 Dudley College and Russells Hall Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Dudley
We are out under Dudley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A commercial-vehicle powder-coating plant in Dudley had the cyclonic recovery unit's exhaust filter bags torn at the seams, and coloured powder was dusting the clean-side plenum. We inspected the bag cages, ran an internal pressure-drop check and logged the particle bypass. It failed on the structural breach - powder was getting past the filter into the workspace. They happened to be running a custom neon-pink batch during the test, which made the leak impossible to miss.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Dudley system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Pensnett 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 Dudley line.
Where exposure is in question - a metalworking and forging 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 Dudley sites - from the Pensnett 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 Dudley 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 Dudley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Peartree Lane 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 metalworking and forging bay, a glass 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 Dudley 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 Pensnett unit will ask to see.
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 Pensnett production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Pensnett and Peartree Lane, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
Metalworking and forging, glass manufacturing, powder coating and metal finishing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Pensnett and Peartree Lane and across the wider West Midlands.
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 Pensnett or a smaller Dudley workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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