Edgware · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Edgware workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Edgware
Edgware is a north London town in the London Borough of Barnet, on the ancient Watling Street, with a large Jewish community and an extensive kosher food economy.
The work is light industry and food - the light engineering and fabrication, the food manufacturing and distribution of the area's kosher and South Asian food sector, and the printing and joinery - across the Bunns Lane and Montrose Avenue units, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Edgware 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 Bunns Lane plant to the single-bench Edgware units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Edgware and the wider Greater London it is your evidence under COSHH.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the light-engineering and fabrication units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the kosher bakeries, caterers and food producers of the area, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Solvent, ink-mist and wood-dust extraction across the print and joinery workshops of the Burnt Oak belt, where VOC vapour and dust need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Bunns Lane and Montrose Avenue units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Edgware 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 nearby university campus and Edgware Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Edgware
We are out under Edgware's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A dental prosthetics lab in Edgware had fine acrylic grinding dust escaping the benchtop cowl because the flexible hose beneath it had split along the wire spiral. We cut the split section out, spliced in new heavy-duty polyurethane hose and tested the hood capture. It passed once the hose was replaced, with the capture at a clean 0.65 metres per second, containing the fine dust. It was a very quiet clinical setting, so the test was run over a lunch hour to avoid disturbing patients.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an Edgware 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 Bunns Lane 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 Edgware line.
Where exposure is in question - a light engineering and fabrication process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
The duty is written into COSHH Regulation 9: where LEV controls a hazardous substance, the employer must have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months and keep the records for five years.
Across most Edgware sites - the Bunns Lane 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 Edgware 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 Edgware duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Montrose Avenue 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 light engineering and fabrication bay, a food manufacturing and distribution 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 an Edgware 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 Bunns Lane or a smaller Edgware workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bunns Lane and Montrose Avenue, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater London.
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 Edgware, but a Bunns Lane fabrication shop and a Station Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Bunns Lane units, term-time access at the Edgware university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Light engineering and fabrication, food manufacturing and distribution, printing and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university campus and hospital - the trades clustered around Bunns Lane and Montrose Avenue and across the wider Greater London.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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