Sandbach · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Sandbach workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Sandbach
Sandbach is a historic market town in Cheshire of around 21,000, famed for its ancient Saxon crosses on the cobbled Market Square and its truck-building heritage as the home of ERF and Foden lorries, beside the M6.
The signature trade is commercial-vehicle engineering - the fabrication and truck-supply engineering, the advanced manufacturing, and the food and logistics of the M6 - across the Wheelock Heath Business Centre and Zan Drive Industrial Park estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Sandbach 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 Wheelock Heath Business Centre units to the smaller Sandbach 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 Sandbach and the wider Cheshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Weld-fume, laser-cutting and grinding extraction across the robotic-welding and fabrication cells feeding the commercial-vehicle trade, carrying the town's ERF and Foden heritage, where metal fume and dust need capture at source.
Weld-fume, powder-coat and machining-mist extraction across the engineering and metal-fabrication units, where metal fume and mist need capture proven.
Cooking-fume, steam and forklift-exhaust extraction across the food-production and M6 distribution units, where the cooklines and charging bays each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Wheelock Heath Business Centre and Zan Drive units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Sandbach 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 local college and Leighton Hospital in Crewe, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Sandbach
We are out under Sandbach's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A commercial-vehicle fabrication works in Sandbach had a weld-fume and laser-cutting extraction over a robotic welding cell pulling weak because a branch damper had corroded part-shut. We freed the damper, re-ran the capture check at the cell and measured the branch flow. It failed at first on the low capture and passed once it was reset, the fume drawn cleanly off the work. Since the HSE reclassified all welding fume as carcinogenic in 2019, on-torch capture was checked alongside the hood.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Sandbach system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Wheelock Heath Business Centre 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 Sandbach line.
Where exposure is in question - a commercial-vehicle and fabrication engineering process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Sandbach sites - the Wheelock Heath Business Centre 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 Sandbach 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 Sandbach duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Zan Drive Industrial 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 commercial-vehicle and fabrication engineering bay, an advanced manufacturing and fabrication bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Commercial-vehicle and fabrication engineering, advanced manufacturing and fabrication, food and logistics, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Wheelock Heath Business Centre and Zan Drive Industrial Park and across the wider Cheshire.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Wheelock Heath Business Centre and Zan Drive Industrial Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Cheshire.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Wheelock Heath Business Centre units, term-time access at the Sandbach 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 Wheelock Heath Business Centre or a smaller Sandbach workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Sandbach 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.
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 Wheelock Heath Business Centre production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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