Totnes · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Totnes workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Totnes
Totnes is a market town of around 8,200 at the head of the Dart estuary in the South Hams, known for its Norman castle, Elizabethan Butterwalk and a fiercely independent, organic and alternative identity.
The signature trade is food and craft - the food and drink production, the woodworking and joinery, and the print and creative studios - across the Totnes Industrial Estate and Beacon Park Business Park, with the bodyshops between them.
Each of those Totnes processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Totnes Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Totnes workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Totnes and the wider Devon it is your evidence under COSHH.
Steam, oven-fume and brewing-vapour extraction across the town's bakeries, craft brewers and food producers, the trade that gives Totnes its organic reputation. The ovens, cooklines and mash tuns each need capture at source before the vapour loads the roof plant.
Wood-dust extraction and LEV across the joinery, furniture and craft workshops carrying Totnes and Dartington's making tradition. Hardwood dust is a known cause of nasal cancer, so extraction is tested to hold airborne dust below the workplace exposure limit.
Solvent-vapour and spray-mist extraction across the screen-print, coating and finishing studios of the estates, where inks, lacquers and adhesives give off VOCs. Local exhaust ventilation captures the vapour at the bench before it reaches the operator's breathing zone.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Totnes Industrial Estate and Beacon Park 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 Totnes 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 King Edward VI Community College and Totnes Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Totnes
We are out under Totnes's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An engineering shop in Totnes had the oil-mist extraction hoods reading below benchmark since the last test, pointing to a worn impeller. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with the impeller, then cleared debris from the ducting and re-checked each point. The system met control standards once the ducting was cleared, and we issued the LEV report.
The test
An HSG258 statutory LEV test goes well beyond a walk-round look. On a Totnes 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 Totnes 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 Totnes line.
Where exposure is in question - a food and drink production process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 makes it plain: any LEV controlling exposure to a hazardous substance has to be thoroughly examined and tested at intervals no greater than fourteen months, and the resulting records kept for at least five years.
Across most Totnes sites - the Totnes Industrial Estate 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 Totnes 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 Totnes duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Beacon Park 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 food and drink production bay, a woodworking and joinery bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Totnes Industrial Estate and Beacon Park Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Devon.
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 Totnes Industrial Estate or a smaller Totnes workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Totnes 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. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Totnes 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.
Food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, print and creative studios, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Totnes Industrial Estate and Beacon Park Business Park and across 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 Totnes, but a Totnes Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Fore Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Local knowledge
Juhel of Totnes raised his motte-and-bailey castle here in 1068, and its stone keep survives as one of the best-preserved Norman fortifications in England. The town that grew below it now works from the Totnes and Beacon Park estates rather than the bailey. On those units, welding fume, wood dust and solvent vapour demand a discipline the castle builders never needed: local exhaust ventilation that captures each hazard at source and is tested every year against the airflow COSHH requires.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.