Sheffield · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Sheffield workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Sheffield
Sheffield is the Steel City, and it still works metal - from the 150-acre Advanced Manufacturing Park to the fabrication and grinding shops across the city.
The AMRC and the Advanced Manufacturing Park at Waverley put Rolls-Royce, Boeing, McLaren and the UK Atomic Energy Authority alongside welding, machining, casting and metallurgy. Around them sit the cutlery and tool makers that never left - the saw and chisel works, the sheet-metal fabricators - and the bodyshops and joinery of every suburb. Metalwork means welding fume, grinding and polishing dust, oil mist and casting fume.
Every one of those carries a COSHH duty to control exposure at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it, 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 it is your evidence under COSHH.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the city's fabrication shops and the AMP. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Dust extraction on the grinding and polishing benches of Sheffield's cutlery and tool trade - fine metal dust that a loaded filter stops capturing.
Oil-mist extraction on machining centres at the engineering shops and the AMRC. Mist collectors clog quietly; a measured face velocity is the only proof they still capture.
Fume extraction over melting and casting - high-temperature metal fume where capture at source is the whole job.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Sheffield 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 universities, the AMRC and clinical labs, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Sheffield
We are out under Sheffield's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
At an electronics assembly plant in Sheffield the solder-fume extraction was running, but the operators had quietly switched several of the tip arms off - which shoved the pressure and the noise up on the ones still open. We measured face velocity at all twelve soldering tips, checked the main unit's static pressure and rebalanced the dampers until the pull was even across every bench. They passed once it was balanced - the whole test done in ESD wrist straps and grounding footwear to protect the boards.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Sheffield 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 Advanced Manufacturing 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 Sheffield line.
Where exposure is in question - a cutlery-trade grinding 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 most Sheffield sites the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites - miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Sheffield 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 Sheffield duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the AMRC or city workshop floor.
Questions
Under COSHH Regulation 9, most local exhaust ventilation needs a thorough examination and test at least every 14 months, higher-risk processes more often. A fabrication shop, a cutlery grinding room and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the Advanced Manufacturing Park and the fabrication, machining and grinding shops across Sheffield, plus university and hospital labs, and the wider South Yorkshire region.
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 an AMP or city fabrication 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 the AMP or a city grinding shop needs for their COSHH file.
Welding and fabrication, CNC and machining, grinding and polishing, casting and metallurgy, vehicle body and paint, woodworking, and the engineering and science labs of the universities and the AMRC.
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 Sheffield, but a grinding shop and a pub canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Waverley or AMP 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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