Sedgley · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Sedgley workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Sedgley
Sedgley stands high on the ridge at the north-western edge of the Black Country, one of the ancient nine villages of its manor and now part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. Its Beacon Hill rises to 237 metres, one of the highest points in the West Midlands, and local lore holds it to be the highest ground between here and the Ural Mountains. The Grade II listed Beacon tower that crowns it, raised in 1846, still looks out over Wolverhampton, Walsall and Birmingham.
The town sits at the heart of the Black Country metal trades, and its working economy still leans on the engineering, fabrication and food units of the wider Dudley and Coseley industrial areas, from Castlegate Business Park to the sprawling Pensnett Estate.
Wherever a Sedgley 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 Castlegate Business Park units down to the smallest Sedgley workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Sedgley and the rest of West Midlands it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the CNC machining centres and turning shops that carry Sedgley's old metalworking trade into the Dudley engineering supply chain.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries, food factories and drinks units across the Coseley and Dudley estates that supply the Black Country's shops and caterers.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Sedgley and Gornal joinery and cabinet works, capturing hardwood and MDF dust at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the structural-steel and fabrication shops that fill the Coseley and Dudley units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at local 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 college, laboratory and healthcare sites across the Dudley borough, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Sedgley
We are out under Sedgley's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A traditional school science lab in Sedgley had face velocity reading low across its fume cupboards, traced to a filter well overdue for replacement. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. All points passed on re-test once the worn impeller was sorted, with readings and a report for the file. The visit was fitted around opening time so technicians weren't disturbed.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Sedgley 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 Castlegate 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 Sedgley 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 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 Sedgley sites, from the Castlegate 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 Sedgley 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 Sedgley duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Pensnett 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Castlegate Business Park units, term-time access at the Sedgley university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Castlegate Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Castlegate Business Park and Pensnett Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Sedgley 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.
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 Castlegate Business Park or a smaller Sedgley 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 Sedgley, but a Castlegate Business Park fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
By the 1600s more than two thousand nailers worked in and around Sedgley and Gornal, whole families forging iron rods at the hearth into nails, hinges, bolts, horseshoes and coffin squares for the Black Country trade. That metalworking instinct still runs through the engineering and fabrication shops of the district, 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.
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