King's Lynn · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for King's Lynn workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
King's Lynn
King's Lynn is a historic Hanseatic port of around 47,600 on the Great Ouse in Norfolk, which grew wealthy on North Sea trade and today anchors West Norfolk's food-processing, paper and engineering industries around its riverside quays and the Custom House.
The signature trade is food and paper - the sauce and food manufacturing, the newsprint and paper-making, and the port and precision engineering - across the Hardwick Industrial Estate and Saddlebow estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those King's Lynn processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Hardwick Industrial Estate units to the smaller King's Lynn workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across King's Lynn and the rest of Norfolk it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Steam, cooking-vapour and heat extraction across the cooking, blending and jarring lines of the food and sauce producers, a major trade of the town, where the process steam and heat load the ductwork and need capture at source.
Dust, steam and process-air extraction across the recovered-paper and newsprint lines of one of the largest paper machines in Europe, where the drying and de-inking processes need capture proven.
Bulk-handling dust, weld-fume and moulding-fume extraction across the port sheds and the medical-device and metal-fabrication units, where dusty agribulk handling and cleanroom work each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Hardwick Industrial Estate and Saddlebow units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at King's Lynn 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 College of West Anglia and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in King's Lynn
We are out under King's Lynn's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A sauce-manufacturing plant in King's Lynn had a steam-and-vapour extraction over a cooking-and-jarring line pulling weak because the ducting above it had loaded with cooked-on residue. We ran the capture checks on the sound sections and logged the fouling. It failed on the restricted duct and the vapour breakthrough, and we specified the clean and remedial run. The line ran hot and steamy, so the test was fitted around a wash-down shift.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a King's Lynn 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 Hardwick 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 King's Lynn line.
Where exposure is in question - a food and sauce 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 King's Lynn sites - the Hardwick 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 King's Lynn 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 King's Lynn duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Saddlebow Industrial Estate 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 food and sauce manufacturing bay, a paper and newsprint manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Hardwick Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Hardwick Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the King's Lynn university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Hardwick Industrial Estate and Saddlebow Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Norfolk.
Food and sauce manufacturing, paper and newsprint manufacturing, port, logistics and precision engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Hardwick Industrial Estate and Saddlebow Industrial Estate and across the wider Norfolk.
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 Hardwick Industrial Estate or a smaller King's Lynn 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 King's Lynn, but a Hardwick Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.