Lincoln · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Lincoln workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Lincoln
Lincoln is a Lincolnshire cathedral city of around 104,000, the birthplace of the tank in the First World War and still a gas-turbine engineering centre.
The heavy work is power and precision engineering - the gas-turbine manufacture, the heavy engineering rooted in the town's tank-building heritage, and the food manufacturing - across the Firth Road and Whisby Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Lincoln 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 Firth Road units down to the smallest Lincoln workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Lincoln and the rest of Lincolnshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Grinding, welding and paint extraction across the gas-turbine and power-engineering lines, a trade rooted in Lincoln's engineering heritage, where metal dust and fume need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the heavy and precision-engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Flour-dust, steam and mist extraction across the Lincolnshire food producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Firth Road and Whisby Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Lincoln 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 University of Lincoln and Lincoln County Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Lincoln
We are out under Lincoln's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An agricultural-machinery paint spray facility in Lincoln had an uneven face-velocity profile across the dry filter wall - the centre filters were fresh while the edge filters were caked in dry primer. We replaced the whole wall matrix with a uniform set of pleated filters and mapped the air pull across a sixteen-point grid. It passed once the wall was equalised, with the face velocity balanced to a clean 0.52 metres per second. It was a huge open-sided hangar, so we waited for the wind gusts outside to drop to avoid external draught interference.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Lincoln 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 Firth Road 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 Lincoln line.
Where exposure is in question - a power and gas-turbine engineering 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 Lincoln sites - the Firth Road 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 Lincoln 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 Lincoln duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Whisby Road 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 power and gas-turbine engineering bay, a heavy and precision engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Lincoln 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.
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 Firth Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Lincoln, but a Firth Road fabrication shop and a Bailgate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Firth Road 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 Firth Road or a smaller Lincoln workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Firth Road units, term-time access at the Lincoln university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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