Spennymoor · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Spennymoor workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Spennymoor
Spennymoor is a County Durham town of around twenty thousand people, seven miles south of the city of Durham, whose name comes from the thorn-covered moor it grew out of. It is a former coal and iron town that reinvented itself around manufacturing - Thorn Lighting built one of its largest factories here - and it gave the North East the Spennymoor Settlement, the 'Pitman's Academy' that nurtured the painter Norman Cornish.
Its working economy runs on precision engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped on the Green Lane and Merrington Lane industrial estates and the modern Durhamgate development where Stanley Black and Decker and other names still make and distribute.
Every Spennymoor process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Green Lane Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Spennymoor units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Spennymoor employers and others across County Durham it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and assembly lines, from the Thorn Lighting heritage on Merrington Lane to the Stanley Black and Decker operation at Durhamgate and the machine shops feeding them.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Spennymoor's bakeries and food producers, where extraction has to hold the line on airborne dust and moisture across the shift.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at the town joinery works and fit-out shops on Green Lane Industrial Estate, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Green Lane and Merrington Lane units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Spennymoor 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 town college and works laboratories, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Spennymoor
We are out under Spennymoor's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The plaster-bench extraction at a well-known Spennymoor dental laboratory wasn't pulling as it should, traced to a leaking flexible connection. We measured face and capture velocities, ran smoke tests at each point and inspected the fan and filter. Once the unsealed joint was sorted, capture came back within benchmark. We booked the visit for a Monday when the lab was closed, and logged and reported the benchmark readings.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Spennymoor 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 Green Lane Industrial 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 Spennymoor 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
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
On most Spennymoor sites - the Green Lane Industrial 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 Spennymoor 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 Spennymoor duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Merrington Lane 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.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Green Lane Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Spennymoor university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Spennymoor 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 Green Lane Industrial 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. 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 Green Lane Industrial Estate 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 Green Lane Industrial Estate or a smaller Spennymoor workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Green Lane Industrial Estate and Merrington Lane Industrial Estate and across the wider County Durham.
Local knowledge
In 1853 the Weardale Iron and Coal Company built its ironworks at Tudhoe on the edge of Spennymoor, and in 1861 it began making steel by the Bessemer process, the first works in northern England to do so. Thousands worked the furnaces, forges and collieries until the ironworks closed in 1901, and that engineering instinct never left the town's machine shops and fabrication units. 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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