Hyde · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Hyde workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Hyde
Hyde is a former cotton and hatting town of around 34,000 people on the eastern edge of Greater Manchester, in the Tameside borough where the River Tame once marked the old boundary with Cheshire. At its Victorian height the town ran close to forty working cotton mills, and for most of the twentieth century the Senior Service cigarette works on Ashton Road was one of its biggest employers until production moved away in 1999.
Its working economy now runs on light manufacturing, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Newton Business Park and the East Tame Business Park in the Newton district.
Every Hyde 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 Newton Business Park plant to the single-bench Hyde units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Hyde employers and others across Greater Manchester it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction over CNC machining centres and turning shops, in a town whose engineering pedigree runs back to Joseph Adamson and Company, the Hyde firm that built steam boilers and pressure vessels at Newton Moor.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food factories and production kitchens on Newton Business Park and the East Tame Business Park, where local extraction keeps airborne dust and vapour off the line.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Hyde's cabinet makers and joinery shops, 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 town's steel fabricators and unit workshops. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Hyde bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the science rooms of the town's colleges and the quality-control labs on its business parks, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Hyde
We are out under Hyde's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A busy nail bar in Hyde had face velocity across its station extract nozzles reading low, which we traced to a partly blocked filter on the unit. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and checked over the fan and filter. On re-test the downdraught nail benches passed comfortably, and we left the readings and a report for the file. The visit was booked for a Sunday while the salon was closed.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Hyde 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 Newton 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 Hyde 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 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.
Across most Hyde sites - the Newton 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 Hyde 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 Hyde duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the East Tame Business 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 Newton Business Park or a smaller Hyde workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Hyde 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Newton Business Park and East Tame Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Hyde, but a Newton Business Park fabrication shop and a Market Street 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 Newton 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. 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 Newton Business Park unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
Joseph Adamson and Company set up at Newton Moor in Hyde in 1874, building steam boilers and pressure vessels heavy enough that the firm's name still marks an industrial estate on Croft Street. That heavy-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and fabricators, 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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