Northallerton · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Northallerton workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Northallerton
Northallerton is the county town of North Yorkshire and the administrative seat of North Yorkshire Council, home to around 11,000 people. Its exceptionally wide, cobble-edged High Street - laid out as a medieval drovers' and market street - remains the town's defining feature.
The town's working side sits east of the centre, where joiners, motor trades, food producers and light engineers cluster on the Standard Way Industrial Estate and the neighbouring Thornfield Business Park.
Wherever a Northallerton process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Standard Way Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Northallerton workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Northallerton and the rest of North Yorkshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Howdens, the Build Centre and the trade counters on Standard Way run saws and sanders that load the air with wood dust - a listed carcinogen - so extraction on the machinery is checked to its capture velocity.
Flour dust from the town's bakeries and the Lewis and Cooper kitchens is a known cause of occupational asthma, so dough-room and packing-line extraction is tested to the standard.
Farm-machinery workshops around the market town cut, grind and weld; on-tool extraction and mobile fume capture keep grinding dust and diesel fume out of the fitters' air.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Standard Way and Thornfield units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Northallerton 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 Northallerton College and the Friarage Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Northallerton
We are out under Northallerton's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A blacksmith's forge in Northallerton had the extraction over its fabrication bench pulling weak, down to a leaking flexible connection. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the fume-extraction arms and cleared a blocked filter before re-checking, and all points passed on re-test, with the certificate and readings issued for the COSHH file. Since the HSE reclassified welding fume as carcinogenic in 2019, on-torch capture was checked alongside the arms.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Northallerton 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 Standard Way 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 Northallerton line.
Where exposure is in question - a joinery and timber 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.
On most Northallerton sites - the Standard Way Industrial Estate 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 Northallerton 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 Northallerton duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Thornfield 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 joinery and timber bay, a food and drink production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Standard Way Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Northallerton university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Standard Way Industrial Estate or a smaller Northallerton workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Northallerton, but a Standard Way Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Standard Way 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. 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 Standard Way Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Standard Way Industrial Estate and Thornfield Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider North Yorkshire.
Local knowledge
In 1138 the Battle of the Standard was fought just north of Northallerton, when an English army routed a Scottish force on Cowton Moor in one of the bloodiest clashes of the period. Nine centuries on, the fight on the town's industrial estates is quieter but no less real: welding fume, solvent vapour and fine dust. Local exhaust ventilation draws those contaminants off at source, and we test each system against HSE guidance so the air on the shop floor stays within limits.
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