Hartlepool · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hartlepool workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hartlepool
Hartlepool is a County Durham port town of around 92,000, home to HMS Trincomalee and a growing offshore-energy and fabrication base on the Tees.
The heavy work is offshore and energy - the offshore-wind and decommissioning fabrication at the port, the heavy engineering and pipe, and the chemical and process trades - across the Sovereign Park and Brenda Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Hartlepool process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Sovereign Park plant to the single-bench Hartlepool units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Hartlepool and the wider County Durham it is your evidence under COSHH.
Weld-fume and grinding extraction across the offshore-wind and decommissioning fabrication shops at the port, where heavy metal fume needs capture at source.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the heavy-engineering and pipe-fabrication units, where metal dust and fume need capture proven.
Vapour, dust and mist extraction across the chemical and process plants, where process vapour needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Sovereign Park and Brenda 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 Hartlepool 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 Hartlepool College and the University Hospital of Hartlepool, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hartlepool
We are out under Hartlepool's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A wind-turbine casting and grinding facility in Hartlepool had a robotic grinding-cell extraction hood missing its perimeter rubber curtains, letting high-speed composite sparks escape the cell. We logged the missing containment, measured the internal face-capture velocity and checked the static suction. It failed on the total lack of physical containment, even though the fan met its core volumetric criteria. The green-energy site required a full induction video and safety quiz before entry to the workshop.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Hartlepool 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 Sovereign 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 Hartlepool line.
Where exposure is in question - an offshore and energy fabrication process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Hartlepool sites - the Sovereign Park units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Hartlepool 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 Hartlepool duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Brenda Road 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 offshore and energy fabrication bay, a heavy engineering and pipe bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Sovereign 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 Hartlepool, but a Sovereign Park fabrication shop and a Church Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Sovereign Park units, term-time access at the Hartlepool 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 Sovereign Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Hartlepool 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.
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 Sovereign Park or a smaller Hartlepool workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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