Peterborough · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Peterborough workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Peterborough
Peterborough is one of the UK's fastest-growing cities, up 14% in a decade, with a heavy-engineering base anchored by Perkins Engines and its 2,500 staff.
The work is engineering and agri-industry - the diesel-engine manufacture and test cells, the agricultural machinery and fertilizer processing of the Fenland economy, and the fabrication, distribution and print units - across the Fengate and Orton Southgate estates.
Every Peterborough 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 Fengate plant to the single-bench Peterborough units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Peterborough and the rest of Cambridgeshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Machining, grinding, weld-fume and engine-test-cell extraction on the diesel-engine lines, where metal dust, mist and exhaust fume need capture at source.
Powder, dust and vapour extraction on the agricultural-machinery and fertilizer-processing lines, where mineral dust and chemical fume load a duct fast.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Peterborough bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined to its design figure.
Solvent and mist extraction on the print and packaging lines - vapour a loaded filter stops holding.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for ARU Peterborough and Peterborough City Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Peterborough
We are out under Peterborough's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A fertilizer blending and storage plant in Peterborough had the bulk-bagging extraction canopy badly scale-pitted along the galvanised duct runs, and ambient air was leaking in. We ran a full pitot-tube traverse and measured static pressure either side of the corroded sections. It failed on the structural degradation - the corrosion had cost 40% of the capture velocity at the bagging head. Strong ammonia through the plant meant full vapour-cartridge respirators for the whole test.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Peterborough system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Fengate 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 Peterborough line.
Where exposure is in question - an engine and heavy 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.
Across most Peterborough sites - the Fengate 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 Peterborough 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 Peterborough duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Orton Southgate 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. An engine and heavy manufacturing bay, an agri-machinery and fertilizer bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Peterborough, but a Fengate fabrication shop and a Lincoln Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Engine and heavy manufacturing, agri-machinery and fertilizer, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, printing and packaging, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Fengate and Orton Southgate and across the wider Cambridgeshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Fengate units, term-time access at the Peterborough 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 Peterborough 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Fengate and Orton Southgate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Cambridgeshire.
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 Fengate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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