Ripon · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Ripon workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Ripon
Ripon is one of the smallest cities in England, a cathedral city of around 16,700 people in North Yorkshire whose story runs back more than 1,300 years to the monastery Saint Wilfrid founded here in 672. Its Saxon crypt beneath Ripon Cathedral is the oldest surviving fabric of any church in England, and every night at nine the Hornblower still sounds the horn on the Market Place to set the watch, a tradition kept unbroken for over a millennium.
Behind the market square Ripon runs on metalworking, joinery and food production, much of it grouped in the units at Ripon Business Park at Melmerby and Canalside Business Park out by the racecourse.
Wherever a Ripon 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 Ripon Business Park units down to the smallest Ripon 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 Ripon and across North Yorkshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machines and lathes, from Econ Engineering on Boroughbridge Road, which has built winter gritters in Ripon since 1969 and supplies four in five of the salt spreaders on Britain's roads, to the agricultural engineers and machine shops that carry the city's old metalworking trade forward.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, kitchens and food producers that supply Ripon and the surrounding Dales markets, where airborne dust and vapour are captured before they reach the lungs.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Ripon's joinery and cabinet works, including the Howdens depot on Canalside Business Park, where hardwood and MDF dust is drawn off at the tool before it can hang in the air.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Ripon Business Park and Canalside units and the city's heavy-fabrication shops. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Ripon bodyshops and commercial-vehicle builders. Two-pack paints release isocyanates, the leading cause of occupational asthma, so booth airflow is checked against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the science labs, veterinary and technical rooms of Ripon's schools and clinics, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Ripon
We are out under Ripon's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The mixer extraction at a high-street Ripon bakery wasn't pulling as it should, the cause a partly blocked filter on the unit. I carried out a full thorough examination and test, taking velocity readings, smoke visualisation and a filter check. Every point passed on the re-test once the loose joint was made good, and I left the readings and a report for the file. The visit was fitted around morning service so staff weren't disturbed.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Ripon 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 Ripon 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 a Ripon line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and 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.
On most Ripon sites - the Ripon Business Park 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 Ripon 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 Ripon duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Canalside 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 manufacturing 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.
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 Ripon, but a Ripon Business Park fabrication shop and a Kirkgate 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 Ripon 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.
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 Ripon Business Park or a smaller Ripon workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Ripon Business Park units, term-time access at the Ripon university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Ripon Business Park and Canalside Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider North Yorkshire.
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 Ripon Business Park unit will ask to see.
Local knowledge
Ripon was known across the country for its spurs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the metalworking instinct never left the city. Today Econ Engineering builds most of the gritters on Britain's roads at its factory on Boroughbridge Road, and the machine shops and agricultural engineers around it throw off the same mist, fume and dust as they cut and weld. Each of those trades carries a duty to control what its work puts into the air. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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