Rochester · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Rochester workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Rochester
Rochester is a historic Medway city in Kent, around 30,000, home to England's second-oldest cathedral, a great Norman castle and the Charles Dickens heritage of Great Expectations.
The signature trade is defence and engineering - the avionics and defence electronics of the Airport Works, the advanced manufacturing and precision engineering, and the plastics and injection moulding - across the Laker Road and Knight Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Rochester processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Laker Road units to the smaller Rochester workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Rochester and the wider Kent it is your evidence under COSHH.
Solder-fume, solvent and coating extraction across the avionics and defence-electronics units of the Airport Works, a trade rooted in Rochester's flight-instrument heritage, where fume and vapour need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and mist extraction across the advanced-manufacturing and precision-engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Fume, vapour and dust extraction across the plastics and injection-moulding lines, where process fume needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Laker Road and Knight Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Rochester 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 the Universities at Medway and the Medway Maritime Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Rochester
We are out under Rochester's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An avionics-electronics plant on Laker Road in Rochester had a solder-fume extraction bench on an assembly line pulling weak because a blast gate in the branch had drifted shut. We reset the gate, checked the capture at the tip with a smoke pen and measured the branch flow. It failed at first on the low capture and passed once the gate was reopened, the fume drawn cleanly off the iron. Rosin-based flux is a known asthmagen, so the fume path was verified along its full length.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Rochester 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 Laker Road 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 Rochester line.
Where exposure is in question - a defence and avionics electronics process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
For the great majority of Rochester sites, from the Laker Road units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Rochester 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 Rochester duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Knight Road 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 defence and avionics electronics bay, an advanced manufacturing and precision engineering 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 a Rochester 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 Laker Road and Knight Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Kent.
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 Laker Road 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 Laker Road production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Defence and avionics electronics, advanced manufacturing and precision engineering, plastics and injection moulding, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the universities and hospital - the trades clustered around Laker Road and Knight Road and across the wider Kent.
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 Laker Road or a smaller Rochester workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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