Kilmarnock · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Kilmarnock workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Kilmarnock
Kilmarnock is the largest town in East Ayrshire, home to around 46,000 people, and a place whose name the world already knows - it was here that John Walker opened the grocery that became Johnnie Walker whisky, and here in 1786 that Robert Burns published his very first book of poems.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, valve and rail manufacture, food and drink and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Moorfield Industrial Estate and Rowallan Business Park.
Every Kilmarnock 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 Moorfield Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Kilmarnock 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 Kilmarnock employers and others across Ayrshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and turning shops, in the town that grew Glenfield and Kennedy into the largest valve and waterworks foundry in the Commonwealth and still builds railway engineering at the old Andrew Barclay Caledonia Works, now Brodie Engineering.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Kilmarnock's bakeries and the food-grade units taking shape at the Ayrshire Growth Deal Food and Drink Centre of Excellence at Moorfield, where product-contact air is held to a hygiene standard of its own.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Kilmarnock 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 Moorfield Industrial Estate and Rowallan Business Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Kilmarnock 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 science and technical workshops at Ayrshire College Kilmarnock campus and the laboratories at University Hospital Crosshouse, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Kilmarnock
We are out under Kilmarnock's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A much-loved dental laboratory in Kilmarnock had the airflow at its dust extraction hoods down on the last test, pointing to a build-up of debris in the ducting. We took benchmark readings, visualised the capture at each hood and sealed a leaking connection. Once the ducting was cleared every point passed on re-test, and we issued a compliance report for the HSE file, working quietly enough that the technicians barely noticed us.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Kilmarnock system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Moorfield Industrial Estate 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 Kilmarnock 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
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.
Across most Kilmarnock sites - the Moorfield Industrial Estate 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 Kilmarnock 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 Kilmarnock duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Rowallan 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 Moorfield Industrial Estate or a smaller Kilmarnock workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Moorfield Industrial Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Moorfield Industrial Estate and Rowallan Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Ayrshire.
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 Kilmarnock, but a Moorfield Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a King Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Moorfield Industrial Estate and Rowallan Business Park and across the wider Ayrshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Moorfield Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Kilmarnock university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Local knowledge
Andrew Barclay set up his engineering workshop in Kilmarnock in 1840, and the Caledonia Works went on to build an estimated 2,000 locomotives that were shipped across the world, the firm surviving today as Brodie Engineering. That precision-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and the valve works that grew from Glenfield and Kennedy, 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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