Edinburgh · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Edinburgh workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is Scotland's capital, home to around 510,000 people, its skyline defined by the castle standing on its volcanic rock above the Old and New Towns and by the festivals that fill the city every August.
The signature trades are food, drink and precision work - the brewing and distilling lines, the avionics and electronics benches, and the printing and publishing houses - spread across the Sighthill and Newbridge estates, with the vehicle and fabrication units between them.
Each of those Edinburgh 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 Sighthill units to the one-bench Edinburgh 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 Edinburgh and across Edinburgh it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Steam, grain-dust and mist extraction across the brewing, distilling and bakery lines that carry on Edinburgh's old trade - the city once held dozens of breweries and still runs microbreweries and food plants such as Nairn's oatcakes - where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Solder-fume and cleanroom extraction for the avionics and radar work at Leonardo's Crewe Toll site, where electronics have been built since 1943, and across the wider precision-manufacturing base - fine fume from hand and wave soldering needs capture at the bench.
Solvent-vapour and paper-dust extraction across Edinburgh's printing and publishing houses, a trade the city has led since the eighteenth century - press rooms release inks and cleaning solvents that local exhaust ventilation has to draw off before they reach the operator.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Sighthill and Newbridge units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Edinburgh 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 Edinburgh and the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Edinburgh
We are out under Edinburgh's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A vehicle workshop in Edinburgh had lost control at the MOT bay, with the weld-fume extraction points affected by a fan not reaching its rated speed. We carried out a thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, running smoke visualisation and checking the filter. One point failed at first on a tired filter and passed after remedial work, and we issued full test documentation.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an Edinburgh 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 Sighthill 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 Edinburgh line.
Where exposure is in question - a food and drink production 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 the great majority of Edinburgh sites, from the Sighthill units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Edinburgh 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 Edinburgh duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Newbridge 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 food and drink production bay, a precision electronics 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 Sighthill and Newbridge, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Edinburgh.
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 Sighthill 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 Sighthill 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 Edinburgh, but a Sighthill fabrication shop and a Princes Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
food and drink production, precision electronics, printing and publishing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Sighthill and Newbridge and across the wider Edinburgh.
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 Sighthill or a smaller Edinburgh workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
Edinburgh Castle stands on the plug of an extinct volcano, its rock quiet for some 340 million years, and St Margaret's Chapel within the walls dates to around 1130, the oldest surviving building in the city. Endurance like that is earned by testing, not assumed, and the same holds for the extraction that protects workers - every local exhaust ventilation system on the Sighthill and Newbridge estates is measured against its design airflow, so the capture at each hood and bench is proven rather than taken on trust.
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