Sidcup · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Sidcup workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Sidcup
Sidcup is a commuter suburb on the south-eastern edge of London, in the London Borough of Bexley and astride the A20, that grew out of the old village of Foots Cray when the railway arrived. Its Frognal House was the seat of Thomas Townshend, first Viscount Sydney, the minister after whom Sydney in Australia is named, and the same Frognal estate later became Queen Mary's Hospital, the birthplace of modern plastic surgery.
Its working economy is light engineering, food distribution and the building trades, much of it grouped in the units at the Five Arches Business Estate at Foots Cray and the Ruxley Corner Industrial Estate off Edgington Way.
Wherever a Sidcup 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 Five Arches Business Estate units down to the smallest Sidcup 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 Sidcup and across Greater London it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on the lathes and machining centres in the light-engineering units at Ruxley Corner and Five Arches, in a town whose sealing and jointing trade goes back to Richard Klinger's Klingerit works.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Sidcup bakeries and the cold-store and catering-supply operations such as JJ Food Service at the Five Arches Business Estate at Foots Cray.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Sidcup joinery and cabinet shops, where hardwood and MDF dust is drawn off at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Ruxley Corner and Five Arches units. Since the HSE reclassified welding fume in 2019, all of it - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at the bodyshops and motor-trade units around Foots Cray. Two-pack paints release isocyanates - the leading cause of occupational asthma - so booth airflow is checked to its design figure.
Fume-cupboard face-velocity testing for the pathology labs at Queen Mary's Hospital and the teaching spaces at Rose Bruford College, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Sidcup
We are out under Sidcup's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A long-established machine shop in Sidcup had the airflow at its coolant-mist hoods down on the last test, with a filter well overdue for changing. We took benchmark readings, visualised the capture at each hood and dealt with a slipping belt. Sealing an unsealed joint brought the capture back within benchmark, and we left full test documentation, having worked the early mornings before the team arrived to keep things running.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Sidcup 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 Five Arches Business Estate 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 Sidcup 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.
On most Sidcup sites - the Five Arches Business Estate 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 Sidcup 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 Sidcup duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Ruxley Corner 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.
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 Five Arches Business Estate or a smaller Sidcup workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Five Arches Business Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Five Arches Business Estate and Ruxley Corner Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater London.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Five Arches Business Estate units, term-time access at the Sidcup university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Sidcup, but a Five Arches Business Estate fabrication shop and a Hadlow Road canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Sidcup 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
Sidcup grew up as a place of works and light engineering, and among them Richard Klinger's Klingerit factory made the gaskets and jointing materials that sealed pipework and machinery across British industry. That instinct for precision still runs through the machine shops and fabrication units at Ruxley Corner and the Five Arches estate, 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 so the extraction reads true against its design figures. When a fume arm or booth is drifting below the numbers, the test finds it before anyone's lungs do.
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