Seaham · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Seaham workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Seaham
Seaham is a County Durham coastal town of around 21,000 people, built almost from nothing by the Marquess of Londonderry, who laid the foundation stone of the North Dock in 1828 to ship coal from his Durham pits out to sea. On the seafront stands Tommy, Ray Lonsdale's 9-foot corten-steel First World War soldier, one of the most photographed sculptures in the North East.
Its working economy today runs on engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Spectrum Business Park and Seaham Grange Industrial Estate, with more at Foxcover Enterprise Park.
Wherever a Seaham 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 Spectrum Business Park units down to the smallest Seaham 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 Seaham and across County Durham it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC and machining lines across Spectrum Business Park and Seaham Grange Industrial Estate, where the machine shops carry forward the heavy-engineering instinct built up over a century of colliery and harbour work.
Steam-canopy and process extraction in the cold stores and food plants around Seaham Grange, home to Seaham Grange Food Park and the seafood and chilled-storage operators that grew up beside the harbour trade.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Seaham cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it ever reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Spectrum Business Park and Seaham Grange units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Seaham bodyshops. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is examined against its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the town clinical, college and industrial labs, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Seaham
We are out under Seaham's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At a long-established ceramics studio in Seaham, capture at the cutting bench had tailed off thanks to debris collecting in the ducting. We ran velocity and smoke tests across the dust hoods, sorted out a worn impeller and re-checked the readings. Once a leaking connection was made good as well, capture settled back inside benchmark, all written up in a signed report. Parking on the market square was tight, so we ran the hoses in from the rear yard.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Seaham system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Spectrum 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 Seaham 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
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.
Across most Seaham sites - the Spectrum Business Park plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Seaham 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 Seaham duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Seaham Grange Industrial Estate 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.
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 Spectrum 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.
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 Spectrum Business Park or a smaller Seaham workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Spectrum Business Park unit will ask to see.
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 Spectrum Business Park and Seaham Grange Industrial Estate and across the wider County Durham.
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 Seaham, but a Spectrum Business Park fabrication shop and a Tempest Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Seaham 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.
Local knowledge
When the Marquess of Londonderry began Seaham Harbour in 1828, he was building an engine for coal: three great pits - Seaham, Dawdon and Vane Tempest - eventually fed staithes and docks that shipped millions of tons a year until the last colliery closed in 1993. That heavy-engineering instinct still runs through the town's machine shops and fabrication units, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.