Irvine · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Irvine workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Irvine
Irvine has been a royal burgh since 1372 and a working seaport for centuries, yet it wears a more unusual distinction - designated in 1966, it became the fifth and last of Scotland's new towns and the only one built on the coast. Its restored harbourside now carries the Scottish Maritime Museum, where the vessels and machinery of Clyde industry are kept afloat.
The town's working economy leans on life sciences, chemicals and advanced manufacturing, much of it grouped in the units of the i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park and Riverside Business Park, where GlaxoSmithKline, DSM and Chemring have long held ground.
Wherever an Irvine 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 i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park units down to the smallest Irvine workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Irvine employers and others across Ayrshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres across the i3 innovation park units, where North Ayrshire has built an advanced-manufacturing cluster alongside its life-sciences base.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the Ayrshire bakeries, butchers and food producers that supply the region, where extraction keeps airborne dust and vapour off the shop floor.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Irvine cabinet shops and joinery works, 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 Riverside and i3 industrial units. Since the HSE's reclassification in 2019, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Irvine 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 pharmaceutical and chemical laboratories at GlaxoSmithKline, DSM and Chemring and for the teaching labs at Ayrshire College, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Irvine
We are out under Irvine's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A traditional vehicle workshop in Irvine had lost control at the MOT bay, the tailpipe extraction reels let down by a worn fan impeller. We checked static pressure, freed a slipping belt and re-tested each point against benchmark. Capture came back within benchmark once the belt was sorted, with readings and a report for the file. We fitted the visit around the lunch rush so the team weren't disturbed.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an Irvine 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 i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry 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 an Irvine line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and advanced 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.
For the great majority of Irvine sites, from the i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry 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 Irvine 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 Irvine duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Riverside 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 advanced 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.
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 an i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
precision engineering, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park and Riverside Business Park and across the wider Ayrshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park units, term-time access at the Irvine 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 an i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park unit will ask to see.
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 Irvine, but an i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around i3 Irvine Innovation and Industry Park and Riverside Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Ayrshire.
Local knowledge
On the sandy Ardeer peninsula between Irvine and Stevenston, Alfred Nobel founded the British Dynamite Company in 1871 and began making dynamite in 1873, building it into what was once the largest explosives works in the world before it passed to Nobel's Explosives and later ICI. That long heritage of handling volatile chemistry safely still shapes Irvine's engineering and process trades, 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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