Hoddesdon · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hoddesdon workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hoddesdon
Hoddesdon is a former coaching town of around 22,000 people in the Borough of Broxbourne, set on the western edge of the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire. Its name carries a national footnote: the Rye House Plot of 1683, the conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and his brother James as they returned from the Newmarket races, took its name from Rye House on the town's edge, whose Tudor gatehouse still stands beside the river.
Its working economy runs on precision manufacturing, food and drink distribution and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the industrial units along Pindar Road at Hoddesdon Business Park and on RD Park by the railway line.
Wherever a Hoddesdon 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 Hoddesdon Business Park units down to the smallest Hoddesdon workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Hoddesdon and across Hertfordshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres, from Cortland Fibron, who manufacture commercial and military diving equipment on RD Park, to the flow-control and precision shops around the Pindar Road units.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Hoddesdon's bakeries, and the chilled and wine distribution halls that Culina, Wincanton and the Sainsbury's depot built the town's logistics trade on.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Hoddesdon cabinet shops, shopfitters and joinery works such as the Datum shopfitting operation on RD Park, 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 Hoddesdon Business Park and Ratty's 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 Hoddesdon 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 testing labs and quality suites on the business park, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hoddesdon
We are out under Hoddesdon's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a local bakery in Hoddesdon the airflow readings on the flour-handling extraction had slipped since the last test, pointing at a worn fan impeller. We checked the static pressure, cleared the blocked filter and re-tested each point against benchmark. Capture came back within benchmark once the tired filter was dealt with, with full test documentation to show for it. The workshop manager was handed a short photo report for their insurance file.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Hoddesdon 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 Hoddesdon 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 Hoddesdon 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
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.
Across most Hoddesdon sites - the Hoddesdon Business 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 Hoddesdon 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 Hoddesdon duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the RD 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 Hoddesdon Business Park or a smaller Hoddesdon workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Hoddesdon, but a Hoddesdon Business Park fabrication shop and a Fawkon Walk canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Hoddesdon Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 Hoddesdon 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.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Hoddesdon 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Hoddesdon Business Park units, term-time access at the Hoddesdon university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
The New River, neither new nor a river but a hand-cut aqueduct completed in 1613, was engineered by Sir Hugh Myddelton to carry fresh water from the springs at Chadwell and Great Amwell down through the Lea Valley to London, and it still threads the eastern edge of Hoddesdon. That instinct for engineered flow and fine tolerance runs through the town's machine shops and precision manufacturers, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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