Mansfield · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Mansfield workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Mansfield
Mansfield is a Nottinghamshire town of around 110,000 at the edge of Sherwood Forest, grown on coal mining and hosiery and now rebuilt on manufacturing and distribution.
The work is manufacturing and engineering - the general and precision engineering rooted in the town's hosiery and mining past, the plastics processing, and the food manufacturing - across the Hermitage Lane and Millennium Business Park estates, with the bodyshops and distribution units between them.
Every Mansfield 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 Hermitage Lane plant to the single-bench Mansfield units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Mansfield employers and others across Nottinghamshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the general and precision engineering units, a trade rooted in Mansfield's hosiery and mining past, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
VOC and particulate extraction on the plastics and moulding lines, where melt fume and dust need capture proven.
Steam, flour-dust and mist extraction across the food producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Hermitage Lane and Millennium 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 Mansfield 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 Nottinghamshire College and King's Mill Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Mansfield
We are out under Mansfield's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A mining-equipment refurbishment workshop in Mansfield had heavy dust settled inside the flexible joints of an extraction arm, and one blast-gate damper had rusted completely shut. We freed the seized gate with penetrating oil, vacuumed the accumulated sludge out and measured the duct face velocities. It passed once the damper was freed, with the capture up to 1.15 metres per second. The repair bays run deep and confined, so the test gear had to be carried in on foot a good 500 metres.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Mansfield 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 Hermitage Lane 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 Mansfield line.
Where exposure is in question - a manufacturing and engineering process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
Across most Mansfield sites - the Hermitage Lane 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 Mansfield 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 Mansfield duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Millennium 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 manufacturing and engineering bay, a plastics processing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Hermitage Lane unit will ask to see.
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 Hermitage Lane 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 Mansfield, but a Hermitage Lane fabrication shop and a Leeming Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Mansfield 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.
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 Hermitage Lane or a smaller Mansfield workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Manufacturing and engineering, plastics processing, food manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Hermitage Lane and Millennium Business Park and across the wider Nottinghamshire.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.