Halesowen · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Halesowen workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Halesowen
Halesowen is a Black Country market town in Dudley, around 58,000, that grew rich on 17th-century nail, chain and anchor making and still hosts the open-die forge founded on Mucklow Hill in 1866.
The signature trade is metalworking - the forging and drop-stamping heritage, the springs and metal-pressing, and the engineering and advanced manufacturing - across the Coombs Wood Business Park and Mucklow Hill Trading Estate estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Halesowen 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 Coombs Wood Business Park units to the one-bench Halesowen workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Halesowen and the wider West Midlands it is your evidence under COSHH.
Scale-dust, heat and combustion-fume extraction across the open-die and hammer-forging stations, a trade rooted in the town's history, where heated billets and quench tanks throw off dust and fume that need capture at the press.
Oil-smoke, grinding-dust and heat-treatment fume extraction across the springs and pressing units, a long-standing Black Country trade, where quench and drawing operations need capture proven.
Machining-mist, weld-fume and cutting-fluid extraction across the precision-machining and toolmaking units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Coombs Wood Business Park and Mucklow Hill units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Halesowen 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 Halesowen College and Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Halesowen
We are out under Halesowen's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A forging works in Halesowen had a heat-and-fume extraction hood over a hammer station pulling weak, letting scale dust and combustion fume roll back off the heated billets. We measured the capture at the hood and checked the make-up air feeding the bay. It failed on the low capture and the fume breakthrough, and we specified the remedial work. The station ran open-die forging at heat, so the thermal load on the ducting was logged alongside the airflow.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Halesowen 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 Coombs Wood Business 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 Halesowen line.
Where exposure is in question - a forging and drop-stamping 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 most Halesowen sites - from the Coombs Wood Business 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 Halesowen 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 Halesowen duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Mucklow Hill Trading Estate 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 forging and drop-stamping bay, a springs, fasteners and metal-pressing 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 Coombs Wood Business Park and Mucklow Hill Trading Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
Forging and drop-stamping, springs, fasteners and metal-pressing, engineering and advanced manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Coombs Wood Business Park and Mucklow Hill Trading Estate and across the wider West Midlands.
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 Coombs Wood Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Coombs Wood Business Park or a smaller Halesowen workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Coombs Wood Business Park units, term-time access at the Halesowen university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Halesowen, but a Coombs Wood Business Park fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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