East Grinstead · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for East Grinstead workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
East Grinstead
East Grinstead sits on the High Weald at the northern edge of West Sussex, a market town of around 27,000 people whose medieval High Street carries one of the longest continuous runs of fourteenth-century timber-framed buildings in England. It is also the town where, from 1939, the surgeon Archibald McIndoe rebuilt burned wartime airmen at the Queen Victoria Hospital, and his Guinea Pig Club earned it the name 'the town that didn't stare'.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units on Birches Industrial Estate and the Charlwoods Road and Beeching Way industrial area.
Wherever an East Grinstead 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 Birches Industrial Estate units down to the smallest East Grinstead workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across East Grinstead and the wider West Sussex it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining and grinding at the precision shops on Birches Industrial Estate and the Charlwoods Road units, where every machine that throws off mist or swarf carries a capture duty.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers around the Charlwoods Road and Beeching Way estates, where airborne flour is both a health risk and an explosion risk.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at East Grinstead 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 town's fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at East Grinstead 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 pathology and research labs at the Queen Victoria Hospital and the science labs at Imberhorne School, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in East Grinstead
We are out under East Grinstead's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
Airflow at the tool capture hoods in a town-centre upholstery workshop in East Grinstead had fallen since the last test, pointing to a build-up of debris in the ducting. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and cleared a loose joint. Capture came back within benchmark once the joint was sorted, and the readings were logged and reported. We left the workshop manager a short photo report for their health and safety folder.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an East Grinstead system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Birches 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 an East Grinstead 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 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.
On most East Grinstead sites - the Birches Industrial Estate units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the East Grinstead 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 East Grinstead duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the the Charlwoods Road and Beeching Way industrial area 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Birches Industrial Estate and the Charlwoods Road and Beeching Way industrial area, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Sussex.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an East Grinstead 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 Birches Industrial Estate or a smaller East Grinstead workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 East Grinstead, but a Birches Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Cantelupe Road 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 Birches Industrial Estate 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 Birches 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.
Local knowledge
Between 1891 and 1894 the architect Philip Webb built Standen on the hillside south of East Grinstead for the Beale family, and from the start the Arts and Crafts house made its own electricity, generated by an engine in a shed by the old barn and carried to light fittings designed by W. A. S. Benson. That early instinct for controlling the power and by-products of a working building still applies in the town's machine shops, where CNC and grinding work throws off oil mist, coolant mist and fine dust. Every one of those processes carries a duty under COSHH to capture what it releases at source. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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