Glasgow · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Glasgow workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Glasgow
Glasgow is Scotland's largest city, home to around 630,000 people on the banks of the River Clyde, its wealth built on shipbuilding, heavy engineering and trade - the city that once called itself the Second City of the Empire.
The signature trades are shipbuilding and marine engineering, precision and aerospace manufacturing, and food and drink production, spread across the estates and yards of a genuine industrial city - concentrated on the Hillington and Queenslie estates but running the length of the Clyde.
Each of those Glasgow 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 Hillington units to the one-bench Glasgow 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 Glasgow and across Glasgow it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Welding, grinding and plate-cutting fume across the Clyde yards at Govan and Scotstoun, where BAE Systems builds the Royal Navy's Type 26 frigates. On-torch capture and fume arms hold the plume off the operator in confined hull sections where it would otherwise sit.
CNC machining, toolrooms and aero-engine work carrying on the Hillington tradition that built Rolls-Royce Merlin engines from 1940. Oil mist and fine swarf come off the machines, so mist collectors and captor hoods pull them clear before they reach the operator.
Steam, grain dust and mist extraction across the brewing, distilling and bakery lines - Tennent's has brewed at Wellpark in the East End since 1556 - where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Hillington and Queenslie units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Glasgow 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 Glasgow and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Glasgow
We are out under Glasgow's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A blacksmith's forge in Glasgow had the fume-extraction arms over its fabrication bench pulling below benchmark, with a partly blocked filter on the unit. We checked static pressure, ran velocity and smoke tests across the capture hoods and cleared the blocked filter, then re-tested each point against benchmark. The hoods passed on re-test once the filter was cleared, and we issued full test documentation.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Glasgow 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 Hillington 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 Glasgow line.
Where exposure is in question - a shipbuilding and marine engineering 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 Glasgow sites - from the Hillington 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 Glasgow 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 Glasgow duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Queenslie 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 shipbuilding and marine engineering bay, a precision engineering and aerospace 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 a Glasgow 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.
shipbuilding and marine engineering, precision engineering and aerospace, food and drink production, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the universities and hospitals - the trades clustered around Hillington and Queenslie and across the wider Glasgow.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Hillington units, term-time access at the Glasgow 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 Hillington unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Hillington and Queenslie, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Glasgow.
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 Hillington production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Local knowledge
At its Edwardian peak the Clyde launched roughly a fifth of the world's ships, and Clyde-built became a global byword for quality - the Cunard liners, the warships and the workboats all went down the ways here. That heavy-engineering base still runs, and the trades that keep it moving - welding, grinding, machining and paint - all throw off fume, dust and mist. Local exhaust ventilation has to capture that at source, tested against its design airflow, before it ever reaches a worker's lungs.
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