Leicester · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Leicester workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Leicester
Leicester is one of the UK's most diverse cities, home to around 368,000 people, and its garment trade alone is reckoned to run to over a thousand factories.
The signature trade is textiles - the cut-make-trim garment factories with their pressing steam and fabric lint - alongside the footwear and hosiery makers, the machine-tool and grinding shops, the bakeries and food producers, and the print and packaging lines across the Troon Way and Braunstone Frith estates.
Every one of those Leicester 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 Troon Way units to the smaller Leicester workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Leicester employers and others across East Midlands it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Overhead canopy and steam-press extraction across the garment factories, where fabric lint blinds a screen and drives heat and humidity up at the workstation.
Dust and adhesive-fume extraction on the footwear and hosiery lines - fine dust and solvent vapour that need capture at source.
Dust and oil-mist extraction on the machine-tool and grinding shops. Fine metal dust and mist clog a collector quietly; a measured face velocity is the only proof it still captures.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Leicester bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Flour-dust and steam extraction across the city's bakeries and food producers, where organic dust is a health and a combustion risk.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the two universities and the Leicester Royal Infirmary, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Leicester
We are out under Leicester's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A garment factory in Leicester had overhead canopy extraction over the fabric steam presses with the lint screens badly clogged, so heat and humidity were building up at the workstations. We measured capture velocities and the total system flow, pulled and vacuumed the lint mesh screens and checked the fan-belt alignment. It passed once the screens were clear, with the airflow back to 0.45 metres per second across the press beds - and we ran the test at an early-morning shift change to keep the operators out of the worst of the heat.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Leicester 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 Troon Way 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 Leicester line.
Where exposure is in question - a textiles and garment 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.
On most Leicester sites - the Troon Way units and the smaller workshops alike - it is the fourteen-month clock that bites: let it lapse and the system is non-compliant that day, however well it seems to run. We examine it, tag each hood with its status and next-due date, and hand over the report an HSE inspector or insurer will want. Where something fails you get the reading, the cause and the remedy - never just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Leicester 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 Leicester duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Braunstone Frith 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 textiles and garment bay, a footwear and hosiery 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 Troon Way production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Textiles and garment manufacturing, footwear and hosiery, engineering and grinding, vehicle body and paint, food manufacturing, and the labs of the universities and hospitals - the trades clustered around Troon Way and Braunstone Frith and across the wider East Midlands.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Troon Way units, term-time access at the Leicester university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Troon Way and Braunstone Frith, the university and hospital labs, and the wider East Midlands.
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 Troon Way unit will ask to see.
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 Troon Way or a smaller Leicester workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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