Maidenhead · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Maidenhead workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Maidenhead
Maidenhead is a Berkshire town on the River Thames of around 70,000, a Thames Valley business and technology hub on the Elizabeth line.
The work is technology and manufacturing - the corporate technology and electronics, the pharmaceuticals and engineering, and the printing and food manufacturing - across the Cordwallis Industrial Estate and Vanwall Business Park, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Maidenhead 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 Cordwallis Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Maidenhead units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Maidenhead and the wider Berkshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Solder-fume, solvent and conformal-coating extraction across the technology and electronics units, where fume needs capture at source.
Solvent, fume-cupboard and machining-mist extraction across the pharmaceutical and engineering units, where reagent vapour and metal mist need capture proven.
Solvent, ink-mist, steam and dust extraction across the print and food producers, where VOC vapour and organic dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Cordwallis Industrial Estate and Vanwall Business Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Maidenhead 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 local college and St Mark's Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Maidenhead
We are out under Maidenhead's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A medical-device manufacturing facility in Maidenhead had a benchtop micro-soldering extraction system pulling low flow because operators had added unapproved DIY cardboard cones to the tips. We removed the modifications, balanced the line blast gates and re-measured the raw capture at the tips. It failed with the cones in place and passed cleanly once restored to the original design. It was a high-tech cleanroom, so we ran a short user-education session on LEV fundamentals for the staff.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Maidenhead system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Cordwallis 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 Maidenhead line.
Where exposure is in question - a technology and electronics 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 the great majority of Maidenhead sites, from the Cordwallis Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Maidenhead 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 Maidenhead duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Vanwall Business 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. A technology and electronics bay, a pharmaceuticals and 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 Maidenhead 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.
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 Maidenhead, but a Cordwallis Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a King Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Cordwallis Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Maidenhead university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Cordwallis Industrial Estate 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 Cordwallis Industrial Estate and Vanwall Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Berkshire.
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 Cordwallis Industrial Estate or a smaller Maidenhead workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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