Stockport · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stockport workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stockport
Stockport is a Greater Manchester borough of around 295,000, historic centre of England's hatting trade and now the focus of one of the country's largest town-centre regenerations.
The work is precision engineering and manufacturing - the general and precision engineering with its aerospace heritage, the printing, and the plastics and food manufacturing - across the Bredbury Park and Cheadle Royal estates, with the bodyshops and workshops between them.
Every Stockport 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 Bredbury Park plant to the single-bench Stockport units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Stockport and across Greater Manchester it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the precision and general engineering shops, a trade rooted in Stockport's aerospace heritage, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Solvent and ink-mist extraction across the print lines, where VOC vapour needs capture proven.
VOC, dust and steam extraction across the plastics and food producers, where melt fume and organic dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Bredbury Park and Cheadle Royal units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Stockport 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 Stockport College and Stepping Hill Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stockport
We are out under Stockport's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A classic-car restoration bodyshop in Stockport had a mobile welding-fume extractor running with its spark-arrestor screen completely missing, so hot sparks were charring the internal paper element. We fitted a new stainless mesh spark-arrestor screen, replaced the charred filter and verified the hood capture flow. It failed at first on the fire hazard, then passed once the screen and fresh filter were in. A 1960s Aston Martin DB5 was being prepped for welding right next to our testing bay, which concentrated the mind.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Stockport 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 Bredbury 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 Stockport line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision and general engineering 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.
Across most Stockport sites - the Bredbury Park plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Stockport 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 Stockport duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Cheadle Royal 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 and general engineering bay, a printing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Bredbury Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Stockport 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 Bredbury Park or a smaller Stockport workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Precision and general engineering, printing, plastics and food manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Bredbury Park and Cheadle Royal and across the wider Greater Manchester.
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 Stockport, but a Bredbury Park fabrication shop and a Market Place canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bredbury Park and Cheadle Royal, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Greater Manchester.
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