Oldbury · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Oldbury workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Oldbury
Oldbury sits at the administrative heart of Sandwell in the West Midlands, a Black Country town built on chemicals and metal-bashing and the seat of the borough council. It was here at Langley Green that Arthur Albright restarted the making of white phosphorus in 1851, and the firm of Albright and Wilson grew into Britain's second largest chemical manufacturer after ICI.
Its working economy still runs on metals, chemicals and the fabrication trades, much of it in the industrial units at Sandwell Business Park and Percy Business Park by the M5 at junction 2.
Wherever an Oldbury 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 Sandwell Business Park units down to the smallest Oldbury 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 Oldbury and across West Midlands it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and roll-forming lines, from the cold roll-formed sections at voestalpine Metsec to the Black Country precision shops that carry on the Accles and Pollock tube-making tradition.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Sandwell's bakeries, food factories and drinks producers, where extraction keeps heat, moisture and airborne dust off the line.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Oldbury joinery and cabinet shops, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Sandwell Business Park and Percy 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 Oldbury 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 Sandwell College and the laboratories of the borough's chemical works and hospitals, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Oldbury
We are out under Oldbury's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A small electronics bench in Oldbury had airflow at its soldering-bench extract tips down since the previous test, pointing to a leaking flexible connection. We checked static pressure, freed a slipping belt and re-tested each point against benchmark. The system met control standards once the fault was dealt with, backed by a signed report. We slotted the visit into the weekly closed day when the shop was shut.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On an Oldbury system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Sandwell Business Park 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 Oldbury line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and tube 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 Oldbury sites - the Sandwell Business Park 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 Oldbury 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 Oldbury duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Percy 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 precision engineering and tube 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at an Oldbury 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Sandwell Business Park units, term-time access at the Oldbury university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Sandwell Business Park and Percy Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
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 Sandwell Business Park or a smaller Oldbury 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 Oldbury, but a Sandwell Business Park fabrication shop and a Halesowen 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 Sandwell Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Local knowledge
In 1851 Arthur Albright restarted the making of white phosphorus at Langley Green, and Albright and Wilson grew there into Britain's second largest chemical manufacturer after ICI, a works that still runs today under the Solvay group. A mile away at Rounds Green, Accles and Pollock drew weldless steel tube from 1902 and went on to make everything from box spanners to aircraft frames and golf shafts. That chemical and metal-working instinct still runs through Oldbury's machine shops, plating lines and fabrication units, and every one carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so extraction reads true against its design figures.
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