Luton · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Luton workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Luton
Luton is a diverse town of around 225,000 built on aviation and engineering - London Luton Airport handled a record 17 million passengers in 2025.
The work is aviation and engineering - the aircraft maintenance and ground engineering at the airport, the automotive body, paint and repair of the old Vauxhall supply chain, and the fabrication and food-manufacturing units - along Dallow Road and the Sundon Park estates.
Every Luton process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Dallow Road plant to the single-bench Luton units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Luton and the rest of Bedfordshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Fume, exhaust and paint extraction on the aircraft-maintenance and ground-engineering lines at the airport, where engine fume and coating vapour need capture at source.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction across the vehicle body, paint and repair units of the old Vauxhall supply chain. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Dallow Road and Chaul End units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Flour-dust, steam and mist extraction across the food producers and production units, where organic dust is a health and a combustion risk.
Machining, mist and fume extraction on the engineering and R&D units of the technology park.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the University of Bedfordshire and the Luton and Dunstable Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Luton
We are out under Luton's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A commercial aviation hangar workshop in Luton had a spring-reeled hose extraction system for diesel engine-exhaust testing with a crushed capture nozzle - it would not seat properly on the vehicle tailpipes. We tested the volumetric flow at the hose end and checked the spring-reel return tension. It failed on the mechanical damage to the nozzle, which was limiting the connection and the capture. It sat right next to an active runway, so it was double ear protection the whole time.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Luton 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 Dallow 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 Luton line.
Where exposure is in question - an aviation and aircraft maintenance 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.
For most Luton sites - from the Dallow Road 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 Luton 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 Luton duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Sundon Park 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 aviation and aircraft maintenance bay, an automotive body and paint 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 Dallow Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Dallow Road and Sundon Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Bedfordshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Dallow Road units, term-time access at the Luton university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Luton, but a Dallow Road fabrication shop and a Bury Park canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Aviation and aircraft maintenance, automotive body and paint, welding and fabrication, food manufacturing, engineering and R&D, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Dallow Road and Sundon Park and across the wider Bedfordshire.
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 Dallow Road unit will ask to see.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.