Livingston · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Livingston workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Livingston
Livingston is one of Scotland's largest towns, home to around 56,000 people. Designated the country's fourth New Town in 1962, it grew from the old village on the River Almond into the heart of Silicon Glen, Scotland's electronics belt.
The town's signature trades still cluster on the estates the Development Corporation laid out - electronics and precision engineering across Houstoun Industrial Estate, pharmaceuticals and laboratory instruments at Kirkton Campus, and manufacturing and distribution around Deans.
Every one of those Livingston 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 Houstoun Industrial Estate units to the smaller Livingston 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 Livingston and the rest of West Lothian it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Solder-fume and PCB-line extraction for the electronics makers that made Livingston the capital of Silicon Glen. Rosin-based flux fume is a recognised cause of occupational asthma, so bench and tip extraction is tested to the capture it was specified for.
Containment and powder-handling LEV for the drug and device manufacturers at Kirkton Campus. Active compounds and fine powders demand booths and enclosures proven to hold their capture, protecting operators over long production runs.
Flour, sugar and ingredient-dust extraction at the bakeries and food plants around Houstoun. Fine organic dusts are both a health hazard and an explosion risk, so systems are checked against their design airflow.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Houstoun Industrial Estate and Kirkton Campus units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Livingston 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 West Lothian College and St John's Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Livingston
We are out under Livingston's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A fabrication shop in Livingston had lost control at the welding bench, with the capture hoods affected by a build-up of debris in the ducting. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and cleared a blocked filter, then re-tested each point. The LEV passed on re-test across the bench extract arms, and we issued a compliance report for the HSE file.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Livingston 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 Houstoun 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 Livingston line.
Where exposure is in question - an electronics and semiconductors 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.
For most Livingston sites - from the Houstoun Industrial Estate units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Livingston 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 Livingston duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Kirkton Campus 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. An electronics and semiconductors bay, a pharmaceuticals and medical devices 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 Houstoun Industrial Estate or a smaller Livingston workshop needs for their COSHH file.
electronics and semiconductor assembly, pharmaceutical and medical-device production, food and drink manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume control - the trades clustered around Houstoun Industrial Estate and Kirkton Campus and across the wider West Lothian.
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 Livingston, but a Houstoun Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Craigshill canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Houstoun Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Livingston 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 Houstoun Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Houstoun Industrial Estate and Kirkton Campus, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Lothian.
Local knowledge
Livingston was designated Scotland's fourth New Town on 17 April 1962, laid out across the River Almond valley to draw light industry into a county the shale and coal pits had left behind. Six decades on, the electronics, pharmaceutical and food plants that replaced the mines run extraction on almost every line. Local exposure monitoring tests each hood against the figure it was designed to pull, so the systems guarding operators from solder fume, dust and vapour are proven rather than assumed.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.