Solihull · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Solihull workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Solihull
Solihull is an affluent West Midlands borough of around 216,000, home to Jaguar Land Rover's largest UK car factory on Lode Lane, Birmingham Airport and the NEC.
The heavy work is automotive - the JLR car manufacturing on Lode Lane with its stamping, body shop and paint shop - alongside aerospace and precision engineering and food manufacturing, across the Cranmore and Blythe Valley Park estates, with the bodyshops and logistics units between them.
Every one of those Solihull 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 Cranmore units to the smaller Solihull workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Solihull and the rest of West Midlands it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Weld-fume, stamping-mist and paint-shop extraction across the JLR car-manufacturing lines on Lode Lane, where isocyanate paint and metal fume need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the aerospace and precision-engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Oil-mist extraction on the CNC lathes and machining centres, where fine mist pools in ductwork and needs capture and clean ducting proven.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Cranmore and Blythe Valley Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Solihull 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 Solihull College and Solihull Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Solihull
We are out under Solihull's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An automotive parts plant in Solihull had an oil-mist extraction system on a CNC lathe with a saturated coalescing filter, and oil was pooling in the bottom of the ductwork. We stripped the filter casing, replaced the saturated element and measured the static pressure across the fan. It failed on the oil accumulation in the main trunk - a live fire risk - and we recommended a full duct wash on top of the filter change. The plant runs automated safety interlocks, so those had to be satisfied before any machinery panel came off.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Solihull 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 Cranmore 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 Solihull line.
Where exposure is in question - an automotive manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
The duty is written into COSHH Regulation 9: where LEV controls a hazardous substance, the employer must have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months and keep the records for five years.
For the great majority of Solihull sites, from the Cranmore 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 Solihull 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 Solihull duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Blythe Valley 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. An automotive manufacturing bay, an aerospace and precision engineering 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 Cranmore or a smaller Solihull workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Solihull 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 Cranmore production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Cranmore units, term-time access at the Solihull university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Cranmore and Blythe Valley Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
Automotive manufacturing, aerospace and precision engineering, oil-mist and CNC machining, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Cranmore and Blythe Valley Park and across the wider West Midlands.
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