Godalming · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Godalming workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Godalming
Godalming is an affluent market town of around 22,000 people on the River Wey in south-west Surrey, and a place that quietly changed the world - on 26 September 1881 it became the first town anywhere to run a public electricity supply, lighting its streets and homes from a waterwheel on the Wey.
Its working economy today runs on light engineering, food production and the fabrication and finishing trades, much of it grouped in the business parks off Catteshall Lane and the units along Ockford Road.
Wherever a Godalming process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Langham Park units down to the smallest Godalming workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Godalming and the rest of Surrey it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC and machining work in the light-industrial units off Catteshall Lane and Ockford Road, where Godalming's engineering trade carries on the instinct that first lit the town in 1881.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, kitchens and small food producers that supply the town's delis, farm shops and riverside restaurants.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Godalming cabinet and joinery shops, 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 Catteshall Lane and Ockford Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at the town bodyshops and MOT units. 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 science laboratories at Charterhouse School, Godalming College and the town's other schools, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Godalming
We are out under Godalming's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A small welding bay in Godalming had lost control at the bench extract arms, the cause a worn fan impeller. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the fume extraction arms, then dealt with a slipping belt before re-checking. With that cleared the system met control standards, and we issued a report with our sign-off on it. Parking was tight on the high street, so we ran our hoses in from the rear yard.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Godalming 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 Langham 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 Godalming 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.
Across most Godalming sites - the Langham Park 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 Godalming 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 Godalming duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Weyside 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.
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 Langham Park or a smaller Godalming workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Langham Park and Weyside Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Surrey.
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 Langham Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Godalming 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.
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 Langham Park and Weyside Park and across the wider Surrey.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Langham Park units, term-time access at the Godalming university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
On 26 September 1881 Godalming became the first town in the world to run a public electricity supply, its street lamps and household lights fed by a Siemens alternator turned by a waterwheel at Westbrook Mill on the River Wey. That pioneering instinct set the town's engineering trades running, and the machine shops and light-industrial units off Catteshall Lane and Ockford Road still throw off the mist, fume and dust that power once promised to tame. Every one of them carries a duty to control what its work releases into the air. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.