Rochdale · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Rochdale workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Rochdale
Rochdale is a Greater Manchester borough of around 224,000, the birthplace of the modern co-operative movement and once the centre of the asbestos-textile industry at Spodden Valley.
The work is chemicals, engineering and food - the powder and chemical processing, the engineering and fabrication, and the food manufacturing - across the Kingsway Business Park and Stakehill estates, with the bodyshops and workshops between them.
Wherever a Rochdale 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 Kingsway Business Park units down to the smallest Rochdale 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 Rochdale and the wider Greater Manchester it is your evidence under COSHH.
Dust, vapour and mist extraction across the chemical and powder-packing plants, where fine powder and vapour need capture at source.
Grinding, machining and fume extraction across the engineering and fabrication units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Flour-dust, steam and mist extraction across the food producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Kingsway Business Park and Stakehill units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Rochdale 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 Hopwood Hall College and Rochdale Infirmary, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Rochdale
We are out under Rochdale's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A chemical powder-packing plant in Rochdale had a powder-dispensing booth losing extraction at the back wall - the automatic reverse-jet pulse line was losing compressed-air pressure. We traced it to a cracked pneumatic poly-tube fitting on the pulse manifold, replaced the fitting and re-checked the filter pressure drops. It passed once the air line was repaired and the differential dropped back into its normal running zone. They were running a heavily pigmented food colourant that day, and our white test gear was stained bright orange by the end of it.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Rochdale 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 Kingsway 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 Rochdale line.
Where exposure is in question - a chemical and powder processing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
On most Rochdale sites - the Kingsway 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 Rochdale 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 Rochdale duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Stakehill 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 chemical and powder processing bay, an engineering and metal 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 Kingsway Business Park unit will ask to see.
Chemical and powder processing, engineering and metal fabrication, food manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and infirmary - the trades clustered around Kingsway Business Park and Stakehill and across the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Kingsway 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.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Rochdale 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 Rochdale, but a Kingsway Business Park fabrication shop and a Milkstone Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Kingsway Business Park and Stakehill, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.