Stoke-on-Trent · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stoke-on-Trent workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke-on-Trent is the World Capital of Ceramics, a city of around 260,000 where pottery still employs some 5,000 people.
The signature trade is ceramics - the kilns, the clay and silica dust of body and slip preparation, the glaze and colour spraying - alongside the tile and refractory works, the welding and fabrication shops, and the distribution sheds across the Etruria Valley and Festival Park estates of the Ceramic Valley.
Every Stoke-on-Trent 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 Etruria Valley plant to the single-bench Stoke-on-Trent units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Stoke-on-Trent and the rest of Staffordshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Dust extraction over fettling, body and glaze preparation - fine crystalline silica dust, tightly regulated, where a blinded filter is a serious exposure risk.
Spray-booth extraction on the glazing and decorating lines, where atomised glaze and colour need capture at the booth face.
Dust and fume extraction on the heavy-clay and refractory lines, where mineral dust loads a duct fast.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the engineering units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Stoke 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 Staffordshire University and the Royal Stoke University Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stoke-on-Trent
We are out under Stoke-on-Trent's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A ceramic tableware pottery works in Stoke-on-Trent had a back-draught extraction hood at a clay fettling bench with a completely blinded secondary HEPA filter, and fine crystalline silica dust was bypassing the filter seals. We checked the filter pressure differential on a digital manometer and ran particulate bypass tests with a laser particle counter. It failed on severe filter blinding and dangerous silica bypass into the workspace - crystalline silica being tightly regulated, we flagged it for immediate health-and-safety intervention.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Stoke-on-Trent system it has to establish three things - that the plant and ductwork are sound, that the hoods still capture, and that the capture still meets the figure the system was designed around.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Etruria Valley 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 Stoke-on-Trent line.
Where exposure is in question - a ceramics and pottery 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.
On most Stoke-on-Trent sites - the Etruria Valley 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 Stoke-on-Trent 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 Stoke-on-Trent duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Festival 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. A ceramics and pottery bay, a glaze and colour spraying bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Stoke-on-Trent, but an Etruria Valley fabrication shop and a Hanley canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Stoke-on-Trent 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 an Etruria Valley 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 Etruria Valley and Festival Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Staffordshire.
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 Etruria Valley or a smaller Stoke-on-Trent workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 an Etruria Valley unit will ask to see.
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