Falkirk · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Falkirk workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Falkirk
Falkirk sits almost exactly midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, a town of around 35,000 people whose name the wider world now knows for the Kelpies - the two thirty-metre horse-head sculptures at the Helix - and the Falkirk Wheel, the only rotating boat lift on earth. It is a place built on iron, from the Carron Company works that cast the carronade to the foundries that once made the town a byword for the trade.
Its working economy still turns on engineering, chemicals and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Middlefield Industrial Estate and Callendar Business Park and in the vast Grangemouth petrochemical complex a couple of miles east.
Each of those Falkirk 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 Middlefield Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Falkirk workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Falkirk and the rest of Falkirk it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and lathes across the Middlefield and Bankside units, and in the engineering shops that feed maintenance and turnaround work at the Grangemouth refinery.
Steam canopies, spirit vapour and flour-dust control in the district's bakeries and drinks producers, including the revived Rosebank distillery on the Forth and Clyde Canal at Camelon, where Falkirk's Lowland malt tradition has come back to life.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Falkirk 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 Middlefield and Callendar units and the contractor fabrication shops serving Grangemouth. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Falkirk 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 Forth Valley College and the laboratories at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in nearby Larbert, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Falkirk
We are out under Falkirk's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A local cabinet maker's in Falkirk had control dropping off at the router table, the capture hoods held back by debris in the ducting. We ran a full thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, visualising with smoke and checking the filter. The LEV passed across the tool capture hoods on re-test, and we handed the report over on completion while the supervisor kept us going with a steady supply of brews.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Falkirk 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 Middlefield 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 a Falkirk 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
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.
For most Falkirk sites - from the Middlefield Industrial Estate 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 Falkirk 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 Falkirk duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Callendar Business Park 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.
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 Falkirk, but a Middlefield Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street 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 Middlefield Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Middlefield Industrial Estate and Callendar Business Park and across the wider Falkirk.
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 Middlefield Industrial Estate or a smaller Falkirk workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Middlefield 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Middlefield Industrial Estate and Callendar Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Falkirk.
Local knowledge
The Carron Company opened its ironworks on the banks of the River Carron in 1759 and became one of the driving forces of the Industrial Revolution, casting the carronade - the short, wide-mouthed naval gun nicknamed 'the Smasher' that fired the first shots at Trafalgar. That engineering instinct still runs through the machine shops and fabrication units around Falkirk and Grangemouth, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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