Salford · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Salford workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Salford
Salford is a Greater Manchester city of around 270,000 on the River Irwell, home to MediaCityUK and the Lowry at Salford Quays.
The work is engineering, manufacturing and media - the general and advanced engineering, the media and set-build workshops of MediaCityUK, and the printing - across the Weaste and Agecroft Commerce Park estates, with the bodyshops and food producers between them.
Wherever a Salford 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 Weaste units down to the smallest Salford 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 Salford and across Greater Manchester it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the general and advanced engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Scenic-paint, solvent and wood-dust extraction across the MediaCityUK set-build and studio workshops, where paint vapour and dust need capture proven.
Solvent and ink-mist extraction across the print lines, where VOC vapour needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Weaste and Agecroft Commerce Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Salford 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 University of Salford and Salford Royal Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Salford
We are out under Salford's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A university chemistry research lab in Salford had a fume cupboard whose sash counterweights were misaligned, so the sash would not close fully and vapour was escaping at the top. We re-balanced the internal cable counterweights, lubricated the tracks and ran the ANSI/ASHRAE 110 smoke-containment tests. It passed once adjusted, with the sash sealing and containment holding at every height. It was an active research campus, so the timing was set with the department head to avoid interrupting long-running syntheses.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Salford 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 Weaste 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 Salford line.
Where exposure is in question - an engineering and manufacturing 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.
On most Salford sites - the Weaste 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 Salford 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 Salford duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Agecroft Commerce 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. An engineering and manufacturing bay, a media and set-build workshops bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Weaste production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Weaste unit will ask to see.
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 Weaste or a smaller Salford workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Salford, but a Weaste fabrication shop and a Chapel Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Salford 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 Weaste and Agecroft Commerce Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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