Dundee · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Dundee workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Dundee
Dundee, Scotland's fourth city with around 148,000 people, sits on the Tay as the self-styled City of Discovery, its old three Js of jute, jam and journalism now joined by life sciences, games and the waterfront V and A, the first design museum in Scotland.
Dundee's working trades cluster on the industrial estates ringing the Kingsway, and the LEV duty is heaviest among the fabricators, engineers and food producers of Wester Gourdie and Dryburgh.
Each of those Dundee processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Wester Gourdie units to the one-bench Dundee workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Dundee and across Dundee it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Solvent and fume extraction for the drug-discovery labs and biotech spin-outs clustered around the University of Dundee and the Technopole, where more than 900 researchers handle volatile reagents daily.
Flour-dust, steam and oven extraction at Dundee bakeries and food plants, carrying the city's Keiller jam-and-marmalade heritage into modern production lines.
Dust, oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction across the machine shops and fabricators on Wester Gourdie and around the Kingsway.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Wester Gourdie and Dryburgh units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Dundee 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 University of Dundee and Ninewells Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Dundee
We are out under Dundee's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A fabrication shop in Dundee had the extraction over its bench pulling below where it should, down to a fan not reaching its rated speed. We checked static pressure, ran velocity and smoke tests against benchmark and freed a leaking connection, then re-tested each point. One point failed at first on a worn impeller and passed after remedial work, and we issued the certificate and readings.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Dundee 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 Wester Gourdie 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 Dundee line.
Where exposure is in question - a life sciences and drug discovery 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 Dundee sites - from the Wester Gourdie 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 Dundee 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 Dundee duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Dryburgh 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 life sciences and drug discovery 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 Wester Gourdie 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 Dundee, but a Wester Gourdie fabrication shop and a Nethergate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Wester Gourdie unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Dundee 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.
life sciences and drug discovery, food and drink production, precision engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Wester Gourdie and Dryburgh and across the wider Dundee.
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 Wester Gourdie or a smaller Dundee workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
The RRS Discovery, the ship that carried Scott to Antarctica, was built on the Tay and launched in 1901; today she sits at Discovery Point as the emblem of the City of Discovery. That research spirit still runs through Dundee's life-sciences labs and machine shops, where solvent vapour, welding fume and fine dust gather unseen. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to COSHH, logging every hood's capture velocity so the extraction pulls contaminant away from the breathing zone rather than past it.
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