Hornchurch · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hornchurch workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hornchurch
Hornchurch is an east London town in Havering, around 63,000, home to the Battle of Britain fighter station of RAF Hornchurch, now the Hornchurch Country Park, and to the Queen's Theatre.
The work sits in the south of the borough toward the A13 - the sheet-metal and toolroom engineering of the Rainham-corridor units, the cold-store and food-distribution packing, and the trade printing and finishing - across the Suttons Business Park and South Hornchurch estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Hornchurch 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 Suttons Business Park plant to the single-bench Hornchurch 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 Hornchurch and the wider east London it is your evidence under COSHH.
Grinding sparks, lathe mist and weld fume drawn off the benches of the sheet-metal and toolroom units along the A13 corridor, where fine metal dust and cutting-oil mist have to be caught at the tool before they reach the operator.
Steam, flour dust and cold-store condensation drawn off the lines of the food producers and distribution packers of the Rainham corridor, where the airborne organic dust is both a lung hazard and an explosion risk.
Ink-solvent vapour off the press lines and dust off the die-cutting and finishing benches, where the VOC load and the board dust each need their own capture and a proven face velocity.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Suttons Business Park and South Hornchurch units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Hornchurch 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 local college and Queen's Hospital in nearby Romford, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hornchurch
We are out under Hornchurch's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A metal-fabrication unit on Suttons Business Park near Hornchurch had a downdraught grinding bench pulling weak because the collector hopper below it had filled solid with fine steel dust. We emptied the hopper, checked the filter had recovered and measured the capture across the bench grates. It failed at first on the choked collector and passed once cleared, the downdraught back at its design figure. Fine ferrous dust is a combustion risk in a full hopper, so the housekeeping was logged alongside the airflow.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Hornchurch 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 Suttons 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 Hornchurch line.
Where exposure is in question - a light engineering and metal fabrication 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.
For the great majority of Hornchurch sites, from the Suttons Business Park units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Hornchurch 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 Hornchurch duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the South Hornchurch 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 light engineering and metal fabrication bay, a food manufacturing and distribution 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 Suttons 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.
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 Hornchurch, but a Suttons Business Park fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Hornchurch 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. 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 Suttons Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Suttons Business Park and South Hornchurch, the university and hospital labs, and the wider east London.
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 Suttons Business Park or a smaller Hornchurch workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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