Gateshead · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Gateshead workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Gateshead
Gateshead is a Tyne and Wear borough of around 196,000 by the Angel of the North and the Millennium Bridge, with Team Valley, one of Europe's largest trading estates.
The work is engineering and fabrication - the precision engineering and metal fabrication, the offshore and energy fabrication, and the printing - across the Follingsby Park and Team Valley estates, with the bodyshops and food producers between them.
Every one of those Gateshead processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Follingsby Park units to the smaller Gateshead workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Gateshead and the wider Tyne and Wear it is your evidence under COSHH.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the precision-engineering and fabrication units on Team Valley, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Weld-fume and grinding extraction across the offshore and energy fabrication shops, where heavy metal fume needs capture proven.
Solvent and ink-mist extraction across the print lines, where VOC vapour needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Follingsby Park and Team Valley units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Gateshead 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 Gateshead College and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Gateshead
We are out under Gateshead's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A commercial vehicle spray-paint workshop in Gateshead had the down-draught booth floor extract filters crusting over with dry overspray, throwing the air pressure out of balance. We measured the ceiling-filter velocities across a twelve-point grid and checked the pressure differentials across the floor pits. It failed on restricted exhaust flow, and we recommended immediate replacement of the primary floor extract filters. The booth handled double-decker buses, so we worked around large mobile access scaffolding the whole time.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Gateshead system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Follingsby Park 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 Gateshead line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and metal fabrication process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
For most Gateshead sites - from the Follingsby Park 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 Gateshead 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 Gateshead duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Team Valley 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 metal fabrication bay, an offshore and energy fabrication 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 Follingsby Park and Team Valley, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Tyne and Wear.
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 Follingsby Park 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 Gateshead, but a Follingsby Park fabrication shop and a Jackson Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Gateshead 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Follingsby Park units, term-time access at the Gateshead university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Follingsby Park unit will ask to see.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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