Halifax · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Halifax workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Halifax
Halifax is the principal town of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, around 88,000, built on wool and carpets and home to the Piece Hall and the Quality Street toffee works.
The signature trades are confectionery and textiles - the Quality Street and toffee manufacturing, the carpet and textile heritage, and the engineering and fabrication - across the Dean Clough and Shay Lane estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Halifax 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 Dean Clough units to the smaller Halifax workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Halifax and the rest of West Yorkshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Steam, sugar-dust and mist extraction across the confectionery and food-manufacturing lines, a trade rooted in the town's Mackintosh toffee heritage, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
Fibre-dust and mist extraction across the textile and carpet lines, a trade rooted in Halifax's wool heritage, where dust needs capture at source.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the engineering and fabrication units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Dean Clough and Shay Lane units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Halifax 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 Calderdale College and Calderdale Royal Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Halifax
We are out under Halifax's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A carpet and yarn spinning mill in Halifax had lint and fibre clogging the rotary drum filter screens on a wool-carding extraction system. We manually cleared the mesh screens, cleaned the fan casing and logged the volumetric flow. It failed at first for lack of scheduled maintenance, then passed once the fibre was cleared. It was a historic multi-storey stone mill with legacy overhead line shafts, so the test ladders had to be positioned carefully and secured.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Halifax 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 Dean Clough 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 Halifax line.
Where exposure is in question - a confectionery and food manufacturing 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 Halifax sites - from the Dean Clough 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 Halifax 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 Halifax duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Shay Lane 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 confectionery and food manufacturing bay, a textiles and carpet manufacturing 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 Dean Clough and Shay Lane, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Yorkshire.
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 Halifax, but a Dean Clough fabrication shop and a Southgate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Dean Clough production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Dean Clough unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Dean Clough units, term-time access at the Halifax university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Halifax 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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