Trowbridge · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Trowbridge workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Trowbridge
Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, is a former woollen-cloth manufacturing town of the West of around 46,000 on the River Biss, its skyline still marked by grand Georgian former woollen mills.
The signature trade is food and engineering - the ready-meal and food manufacturing, the advanced manufacturing and engineering, and the brewing and logistics - across the White Horse Business Park and Canal Road estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Trowbridge 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 White Horse Business Park plant to the single-bench Trowbridge units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Trowbridge and across Wiltshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Steam, cooking-vapour and heat extraction across the cook-freeze and ready-meal lines of the town's largest employer, where the cooking lines and process areas need capture at source.
Weld-fume, grinding-dust and machining-mist extraction across the engineering and fabrication units of the business parks, where metal fume and mist need capture proven.
Steam, brewing-vapour and forklift-exhaust extraction across the small brewers and distribution yards, carrying the town's brewing heritage, where the brewing benches and vehicle bays each need their own capture.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the White Horse Business Park and Canal 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 Trowbridge 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 Wiltshire College and the Trowbridge Community Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Trowbridge
We are out under Trowbridge's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A ready-meal manufacturing plant in Trowbridge had a steam-and-cook extraction over a cook-freeze line pulling weak because the ducting above it had loaded with cooked-on residue. We ran the capture checks on the sound sections and logged the fouling. It failed on the restricted duct and the steam breakthrough, and we specified the clean and remedial run. The line ran hot cook-freeze, so the test was fitted around a wash-down shift.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Trowbridge system it answers three things: is the system intact, does it still capture, and does that capture match what it was designed to do.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the White Horse Business Park 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 Trowbridge line.
Where exposure is in question - a ready-meal and food manufacturing 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.
On most Trowbridge sites - the White Horse Business Park 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 Trowbridge 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 Trowbridge duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Canal Road Industrial Estate 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 ready-meal and food manufacturing bay, an advanced manufacturing and engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 White Horse Business Park production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Trowbridge, but a White Horse Business Park fabrication shop and a Fore Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Trowbridge 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.
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 White Horse Business Park or a smaller Trowbridge 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 a White Horse Business Park unit will ask to see.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the White Horse Business Park units, term-time access at the Trowbridge university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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