Norwich · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Norwich workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Norwich
Norwich is a medieval city of around 144,000 with a research park and a food-and-engineering base that employs some 10,000 in advanced manufacturing.
The work is food, engineering and science - the Norfolk food and drink producers, the fabrication and advanced-engineering shops, the aviation and aircraft-maintenance units at the airport, and the agri-tech and life-sciences labs of the Norwich Research Park - across Hurricane Way and the Broadland Business Park.
Wherever a Norwich 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 Hurricane Way units down to the smallest Norwich workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Norwich and the wider Norfolk it is your evidence under COSHH.
Flour-dust, steam and mist extraction across the Norfolk food and drink producers, where organic dust is a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the advanced-engineering and fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Fume, sanding and paint extraction on the aircraft-maintenance lines at Norwich Airport, where composite dust and coating fume need capture at source.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Norwich bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Dust extraction on saws, sanders and routers. Hardwood dust is a known carcinogen; ductwork and filters are checked for capture and leakage.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the University of East Anglia and the Norwich Research Park labs, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Norwich
We are out under Norwich's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A heritage timber-window restoration workshop in Norwich had its main woodwaste extraction duct sagging badly over a six-metre span, and a big pocket of sawdust had settled in the dip. We measured the transport velocity upstream and downstream of the sag and realigned the support brackets to level the run. It failed on transport velocity - it had dropped to 9 metres per second at the sag, which risks blockages. The workshop was inside a converted 19th-century church, so the duct supports could only fix to specified masonry joints.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Norwich 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 Hurricane Way 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 Norwich line.
Where exposure is in question - a food and drink manufacturing 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 Norwich sites - from the Hurricane Way 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 Norwich 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 Norwich duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Broadland 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 food and drink manufacturing bay, an engineering and fabrication 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 Hurricane Way unit will ask to see.
Food and drink manufacturing, engineering and fabrication, aviation and aircraft maintenance, vehicle body and paint, woodworking, and the labs of the university and research park - the trades clustered around Hurricane Way and Broadland Business Park and across the wider Norfolk.
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 Hurricane Way production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Hurricane Way units, term-time access at the Norwich university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Norwich 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 Norwich, but a Hurricane Way fabrication shop and a Magdalen Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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