Stonehaven · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Stonehaven workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Stonehaven
Stonehaven is a harbour town on the Aberdeenshire coast, home to around 11,000 people and roughly 15 miles south of Aberdeen. The cliff-top ruin of Dunnottar Castle and the sheltered old harbour define the place, while its working economy leans on the North Sea and the offshore-energy corridor running up to Aberdeen.
The town's workshops sit mainly on Spurryhillock Industrial Estate and along Broomhill Road, where fabrication, container conversion and precision-engineering units feed the offshore-energy supply chain of the wider Aberdeen area. Seafood landed at the harbour and the trades of the old town round out a compact but genuinely industrial base.
Every Stonehaven 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 Spurryhillock plant to the single-bench Stonehaven 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 Stonehaven employers and others across Aberdeenshire it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Container conversion and modular fabrication for the offshore sector run at the Spurryhillock units, where cutting, grinding and welding load the air with metal fume and dust. Local exhaust ventilation drawn to each station keeps operators clear of the plume.
Haddock and shellfish landed at the harbour are gutted, filleted and chilled in processing rooms where brine mist, cleaning chemicals and refrigeration loads build up. Extraction and make-up air hold the humidity and aerosols down.
CNC machining and toolrooms serving the energy trade throw oil mist and fine swarf into the air. Mist collectors and captor hoods pull it off the machines before it reaches the operator.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Spurryhillock and Broomhill Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Stonehaven 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 North East Scotland College and Kincardine Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Stonehaven
We are out under Stonehaven's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A bodyshop in Stonehaven had capture velocity at its spray booth dropping below benchmark, with the fan not reaching its rated speed. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture across the booth and changed a tired filter, then freed a leaking connection and re-checked. All points passed on re-test once the connection was sealed, and we issued a compliance report for the HSE file.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Stonehaven system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Spurryhillock 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 Stonehaven line.
Where exposure is in question - an oil and gas fabrication 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 Stonehaven sites - the Spurryhillock 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 Stonehaven 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 Stonehaven duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Broomhill Road 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 oil and gas fabrication bay, a seafood and fish processing 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 Stonehaven, but a Spurryhillock fabrication shop and an Allardice Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Spurryhillock or a smaller Stonehaven workshop needs for their COSHH file.
oil and gas fabrication, seafood processing, precision engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle bodyshops, and teaching and clinical labs - the trades clustered around Spurryhillock and Broomhill Road and across the wider Aberdeenshire.
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 Spurryhillock 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 Spurryhillock units, term-time access at the Stonehaven 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 Stonehaven 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.
Local knowledge
When Cromwell's army marched north in 1651, the Honours of Scotland - the nation's crown, sceptre and sword - were smuggled into Dunnottar Castle, the clifftop fortress a mile south of the town, and held through the 1651-52 siege before being spirited out to safety. That instinct to protect what matters carries into how we treat local exhaust ventilation: every system on the Spurryhillock estate is tested against its design airflow, so the protection is real rather than assumed.
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