Stockton-on-Tees · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stockton-on-Tees workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stockton-on-Tees
Stockton-on-Tees is a Teesside borough of around 197,000 on the Tees, with the widest high street in England and a heartland in the region's chemical and process industry.
The heavy work is chemicals and process - the Billingham and Seal Sands chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing, the heavy engineering and fabrication, and the offshore and energy trades - across the Bowesfield and Preston Farm estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Stockton-on-Tees 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 Bowesfield plant to the single-bench Stockton-on-Tees 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 Stockton-on-Tees employers and others across County Durham it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Vapour, dust and mist extraction across the Billingham and Seal Sands chemical and process plants, a trade rooted in the Teesside cluster, where process vapour needs capture at source.
Solvent, fume-cupboard and containment extraction across the biologics and pharmaceutical lines, where reagent vapour and dust need capture proven.
Grinding, machining and weld-fume extraction across the heavy-engineering and fabrication units, where metal dust and fume need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Bowesfield and Preston Farm units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Stockton 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 local university centre and the University Hospital of North Tees, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stockton-on-Tees
We are out under Stockton-on-Tees's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A heavy fabrication yard in Stockton-on-Tees had a track-mounted welding-fume extraction arm drooping right away from the arc zone - a friction joint had failed. We tightened the articulated joint tensioners, adjusted the internal counterweight and measured the capture velocities at 300mm. It passed on airflow, but we issued a structural maintenance alert for the damaged arm linkages. The bay was building offshore wind turbine sub-structures, so strict crane-clearance zones governed where we could work.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Stockton-on-Tees 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 Bowesfield 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 Stockton-on-Tees line.
Where exposure is in question - a chemicals and process manufacturing 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 Stockton-on-Tees sites - from the Bowesfield units to the smaller workshops - 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 Stockton-on-Tees 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 Stockton-on-Tees duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Preston Farm 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 chemicals and process manufacturing bay, a pharmaceuticals and biologics 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 Bowesfield or a smaller Stockton-on-Tees workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Stockton-on-Tees, but a Bowesfield fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Chemicals and process manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and biologics, heavy engineering and fabrication, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university centre and hospital - the trades clustered around Bowesfield and Preston Farm and across the wider County Durham.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Bowesfield and Preston Farm, the university and hospital labs, and the wider County Durham.
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 Bowesfield unit will ask to see.
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 Bowesfield production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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