Oban · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Oban workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Oban
Oban is a west-coast ferry port of around 8,000 people on the Firth of Lorn, long billed as the Gateway to the Isles and the Seafood Capital of Scotland.
Its working economy runs on shellfish and salmon landing and processing, whisky, marine trades and the workshops packed into the Lochavullin and Glenshellach estates.
Wherever an Oban 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 Lochavullin units down to the smallest Oban workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Oban and across Argyll and Bute it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Shellfish and salmon handling around the harbour and Lochavullin runs chilled rooms, brine tanks and cooking lines that need steady extraction and make-up air. Local exhaust ventilation keeps steam, cleaning-chemical fumes and stored-product gases under control.
Oban Distillery has worked the town centre since 1794, and cask, bottling and warehouse tasks carry alcohol vapour and grain dust. Extraction and air handling are tested to hold vapour below its flammable range.
The marina and Kerrera-side yards keep engineers grinding, resin-laminating and antifouling hulls. Styrene from GRP work and solvent from coatings both need capture at source before they reach the operator.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Lochavullin and Glenshellach units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Oban 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 UHI Argyll and Lorn and Islands Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Oban
We are out under Oban's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An engineering shop in Oban had lost control at the lathe, with the mist-extraction hoods affected by a build-up of debris in the ducting. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the mist-extraction hoods, cleared the ducting and changed a blocked filter, then re-checked each point. The system met control standards once the filter was changed, and we issued the thorough examination and test certificate.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On an Oban 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 Lochavullin 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 an Oban line.
Where exposure is in question - a seafood processing and cold stores 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 Oban sites - from the Lochavullin 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 Oban 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 Oban duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Glenshellach 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 seafood processing and cold stores bay, a whisky and food 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 Lochavullin units, term-time access at the Oban 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 Oban, but a Lochavullin fabrication shop and a George Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Lochavullin 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 Lochavullin production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Oban 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 Lochavullin or a smaller Oban workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Local knowledge
McCaig's Tower crowns Battery Hill above the town, a granite folly modelled on Rome's Colosseum that banker John Stuart McCaig began in 1897 to give Oban's stonemasons work through the winter; it was still unfinished when he died in 1902. That care for the craft below the surface is how we treat local air quality - fume arms, capture hoods and extraction sized to the process, then tested against the numbers so nothing harmful drifts back onto the floor.
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