Liverpool · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Liverpool workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Liverpool
Liverpool is a port city of some 660,000 people, and its industry runs from the dockside fabrication yards to the pharma and chemical plants of Speke and Knowsley.
The work clusters on the big estates - welding and general engineering across Knowsley, vehicle body and paint feeding the Halewood plant, the pharma and biomanufacturing labs of Speke, the chemical works, and the maritime fabrication along the Port of Liverpool.
Each of those Liverpool processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Knowsley units to the one-bench Liverpool workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Liverpool and across Merseyside it stands as their COSHH evidence.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Knowsley engineering units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at the automotive units around Halewood and Knowsley. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Fume-cupboard and containment extraction across the Speke life-sciences cluster, where capture at source is the whole control measure.
Vapour and mist extraction on the Speke and Knowsley process lines - corrosive fume that quietly eats a duct from the inside.
Fume and dust extraction in the dockside fabrication and ship-repair units along the Port of Liverpool.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the four universities and the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Liverpool
We are out under Liverpool's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A heavy welding yard in Liverpool had a mobile extraction unit with its filter alarm going and a capture arm drooping away from the bench - the flexible-arm joints had worn loose. We ran a volumetric flow test through the arm, tightened the joints back up and checked the HEPA and carbon cell, and it failed on flow: the filters were blinded and the arm would not hold position. Some of the fume was specialist alloy, so we cross-referenced the manganese exposure limits before signing anything off, and set out the filter change and arm repair it needed.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Liverpool system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Knowsley 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 Liverpool line.
Where exposure is in question - a welding and fabrication 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.
On most Liverpool sites - the Knowsley 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 Liverpool 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 Liverpool duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Speke 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 welding and fabrication bay, a vehicle body and paint bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Knowsley and Speke, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Merseyside.
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 Knowsley 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 Liverpool, but a Knowsley fabrication shop and a Bold Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, pharma and biomanufacturing, chemicals and process, maritime and port engineering, and the labs of the universities and hospitals - the trades clustered around Knowsley and Speke and across the wider Merseyside.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Knowsley units, term-time access at the Liverpool 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 a Knowsley unit will ask to see.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.