Eastbourne · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Eastbourne workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Eastbourne
Eastbourne is an East Sussex seaside resort of around 101,000 below Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, with a Victorian pier and seafront.
The work is engineering and coastal trades - the engineering and precision manufacturing, the food manufacturing and print, and the marine trades around Sovereign Harbour - across the Birch Road and Lottbridge Drove estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Eastbourne process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Birch Road plant to the single-bench Eastbourne units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Eastbourne employers and others across East Sussex it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the engineering and precision-manufacturing units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Solvent and ink-mist extraction across the print and finishing lines, where VOC vapour needs capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Birch Road and Lottbridge Drove units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Eastbourne bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Resin, dust and fume-cupboard extraction across the Sovereign Harbour marine trades and the college and hospital labs, where vapour and dust need capture at source.
On the ground in Eastbourne
We are out under Eastbourne's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A joinery and wood-turning studio in Eastbourne had the wood-shavings collection hopper puffing fine hardwood dust out of an unsealed top flange every time the extraction fan started. We replaced the worn neoprene flange gasket, resealed the perimeter and ran a static pressure check across the cyclone. It passed once the gasket was in, with the transport velocity at a safe 20 metres per second in the main branch. The maritime humidity off the seafront meant regularly recalibrating the hot-wire anemometer.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On an Eastbourne 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 Birch Road 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 Eastbourne line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and precision manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Eastbourne sites - the Birch Road 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 Eastbourne 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 Eastbourne duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Lottbridge Drove 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. An engineering and precision manufacturing bay, a food manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Eastbourne, but a Birch Road fabrication shop and a Terminus Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Birch Road or a smaller Eastbourne workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Eastbourne 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Birch Road and Lottbridge Drove, the university and hospital labs, and the wider East Sussex.
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 Birch Road 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 Birch Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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