Rugeley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Rugeley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Rugeley
Rugeley is a Staffordshire market town of around twenty-four thousand people set on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase, where the River Trent and the Trent and Mersey Canal run close by the town centre. For half a century its skyline was ruled by the cooling towers of Rugeley Power Station, and its darker fame belongs to Dr William Palmer, the Rugeley Poisoner, hanged at Stafford in 1856.
The town grew on deep-shaft coal from Lea Hall Colliery, and its working economy today runs on manufacturing, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Towers Business Park on the former colliery ground and Trent Business Park on Power Station Road.
Wherever a Rugeley 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 Towers Business Park units down to the smallest Rugeley 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 Rugeley and across Staffordshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and production lines in the units at Towers Business Park, built on the reclaimed ground of the old Lea Hall Colliery.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and food producers working out of the Rugeley trade units and Trent Business Park, where the extraction is captured at source before it settles.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Rugeley cabinet shops and joinery works, 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 Towers Business Park and Trent Business Park units. Since the HSE reclassification in 2019, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Rugeley 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 laboratories, colleges and healthcare sites around Rugeley and the wider Cannock Chase district, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Rugeley
We are out under Rugeley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A town-centre bakery in Rugeley had low face velocity across its flour-handling extraction, which traced back to a partly blocked filter starving the unit. I measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and looked over the fan and filter. Once an unsealed joint was cleared the system came back up to control standards, and I wrote it into a compliance report for the HSE file. Parking was tight on the high street, so I ran the hoses in from the rear yard to reach the plant.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Rugeley system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Towers 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 Rugeley 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.
For the great majority of Rugeley sites, from the Towers Business Park 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 Rugeley 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 Rugeley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Trent 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Towers Business Park and Trent Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Staffordshire.
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 Rugeley, but a Towers Business Park fabrication shop and a Horsefair canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Towers Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Towers Business Park units, term-time access at the Rugeley university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Towers Business Park or a smaller Rugeley workshop needs for their COSHH file.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Towers Business Park and Trent Business Park and across the wider Staffordshire.
Local knowledge
In 1960 the National Coal Board sank Lea Hall Colliery on the edge of Rugeley, a deep-shaft mine reckoned the largest of its kind in Europe, and for three decades it drove the town's economy before the last coal was wound up in 1991. The pit head has gone, but the engineering and manufacturing trades that grew around it still run machine shops on the reclaimed ground at Towers Business Park, and every one of them throws off mist, fume and dust. Controlling what the working air carries is exactly what a local exhaust ventilation duty asks for. We test and certify LEV so the extraction reads true against its design figures, to the standard COSHH sets.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.