Swindon · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Swindon workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Swindon
Swindon is a Wiltshire town of around 233,000, grown by the Great Western Railway Works into one of the world's largest railway engineering centres.
The work is advanced manufacturing and engineering - the automotive and precision engineering of the town's motor-industry era, the plastics and moulding, and the food manufacturing - across the Dorcan and Cheney Manor estates, with the bodyshops and distribution units between them.
Wherever a Swindon process releases fume, dust, mist or vapour, COSHH puts the duty on you to control it at source, and the extraction that does so is LEV - subject to a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months. We work across the range, from the Dorcan units down to the smallest Swindon workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Swindon and the wider Wiltshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the advanced-manufacturing and engineering lines, a trade rooted in Swindon's railway and motor-industry heritage, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Weld-fume, machining-mist and paint extraction across the automotive and precision-engineering units, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture proven.
VOC and particulate extraction on the plastics and moulding lines, where melt fume and dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Dorcan and Cheney Manor units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Swindon 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 New College Swindon and the Great Western Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Swindon
We are out under Swindon's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A high-precision electronics cleanroom in Swindon had its benchtop soldering micro-extraction arms badly out of balance - the outer arms pulled nothing while the centre arms hissed under too much draw. We measured the static pressure at the main collector manifold and re-indexed every blast-gate damper by hand. It passed once the system was balanced, with a uniform 0.4 metres per second capture across all the active benches. Full anti-static ESD garments, ground straps and dedicated cleanroom toolboxes were mandatory to get in.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Swindon 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 Dorcan 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 Swindon line.
Where exposure is in question - an advanced manufacturing and engineering 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.
For the great majority of Swindon sites, from the Dorcan units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Swindon 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 Swindon duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Cheney Manor 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 advanced manufacturing and engineering bay, an automotive and precision engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Dorcan unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Dorcan units, term-time access at the Swindon university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Swindon, but a Dorcan fabrication shop and a Wood Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Advanced manufacturing and engineering, automotive and precision engineering, plastics and moulding, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Dorcan and Cheney Manor and across the wider Wiltshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Swindon 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.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Dorcan and Cheney Manor, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Wiltshire.
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