Tavistock · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Tavistock workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Tavistock
Tavistock is an ancient stannary town on the western edge of Dartmoor, home to around 13,000 people. Straddling the River Tavy some fourteen miles north of Plymouth, it grew rich on tin and copper and remains the western gateway to the moor.
Its working economy runs on construction, farm engineering and food trades, much of it based on the Westbridge Industrial Estate off Pixon Lane and at West Devon Business Park on the A386. Where those trades cut, weld or fry, the local air-extraction plant has to be tested and kept lawful.
Every one of those Tavistock processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Westbridge Industrial Estate units to the smaller Tavistock workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Tavistock and across Devon it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Dust extraction on saws, sanders and routers at Tavistock joinery shops and the timber merchants around Pixon Lane. Wood dust is a Schedule 1 carcinogen, so capture is tested against the workshop's exposure standard.
Flour-handling and mixing extraction for the town's bakeries and the Pannier Market food producers. Flour dust is one of the commonest causes of occupational asthma, so local exhaust ventilation is checked where it is weighed and sieved.
Weld bays and grinding stations at the farm-machinery workshops serving Dartmoor-edge holdings. Metal fume and dust are drawn off at source before they reach the fitter's breathing zone.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Westbridge and West Devon Business Park units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Tavistock 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 Tavistock College and Tavistock Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Tavistock
We are out under Tavistock's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A fabrication shop in Tavistock had face velocity across its welding-bench extract arms reading low, traced to a filter well overdue for replacement. We checked static pressure, cleared the blocked filter and tightened a loose joint, then re-tested each point against benchmark. All points passed on re-test once the filter was cleared, and we issued the certificate with the readings.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Tavistock 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 Westbridge Industrial Estate 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 Tavistock line.
Where exposure is in question - a woodworking and joinery 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.
For the great majority of Tavistock sites, from the Westbridge Industrial Estate 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 Tavistock 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 Tavistock duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the West Devon Business 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 woodworking and joinery bay, a bakeries and food production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
welding bays, spray booths, joinery dust lines, bakery flour-handling, farm-workshop grinding stations and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Westbridge Industrial Estate and West Devon Business Park and across the wider Devon.
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 Westbridge Industrial Estate 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 Westbridge Industrial Estate 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 Westbridge Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Tavistock university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Westbridge Industrial Estate and West Devon Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Devon.
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 Tavistock, but a Westbridge Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Bedford Square canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
Tavistock grew up around a Benedictine abbey founded in the tenth century and dissolved in 1539, when Henry VIII handed its lands to the Russell family, later the Dukes of Bedford. Their copper wealth rebuilt the town in Victorian stone. That same instinct for building things well now shows in its workshops, where any welding, grinding or spraying bench must run local exhaust ventilation that is tested to prove it captures fume before anyone breathes it.
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