Truro · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Truro workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Truro
Truro is Cornwall's only city and its administrative and retail capital, a place of around 25,000 people built where three rivers meet and crowned by the three soaring spires of Truro Cathedral. Raised between 1880 and 1910 to John Loughborough Pearson's Gothic Revival design, it was the first Anglican cathedral built on a new site in England since Salisbury in 1220, and it still marks the skyline above the Georgian frontages of Lemon Street and Boscawen Street.
Beneath the retail and civic bustle Truro runs a working economy of precision engineering, food production and the fabrication and marine trades, most of it grouped in the units at Threemilestone Industrial Estate on the western edge and the riverside yards of Newham Industrial Estate below the city.
Wherever a Truro 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 Threemilestone Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Truro 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 Truro and the wider Cornwall it is your evidence under COSHH.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC lathes and machining centres at the engineering shops around Threemilestone Industrial Estate, where firms like Component Engineering machine metal to close tolerances for Cornwall industry.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in the bakeries and Cornish pasty producers that supply the city's shops and the wider Duchy, from the Newham riverside units to the Threemilestone estate.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Truro cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Newham and Threemilestone units, serving the marine and engineering trades that grew up around the Port of Truro. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Truro 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 the pathology and diagnostic laboratories at the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske and the science rooms of Truro and Penwith College, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Truro
We are out under Truro's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
The paint line extraction at an independent bodyshop in Truro wasn't drawing as it should, with a slipping fan drive belt at the root of it. We checked static pressure, sorted the loose joint and re-tested each point back against benchmark. Once the worn impeller was replaced the capture returned to benchmark, and a signed HSG258 report followed. The owner booked a standing six-monthly visit on the spot.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Truro 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 Threemilestone 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 Truro line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and manufacturing 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.
On most Truro sites - the Threemilestone Industrial Estate 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 Truro 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 Truro duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Newham 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 precision engineering and manufacturing bay, a food and drink production bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Threemilestone Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Truro university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Threemilestone Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Truro 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.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Threemilestone Industrial Estate and Newham Industrial Estate and across the wider Cornwall.
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 Truro, but a Threemilestone Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Boscawen Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Threemilestone Industrial Estate and Newham Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Cornwall.
Local knowledge
Truro was named a stannary town under a charter that let smelted tin be assayed and taxed here, and the Coinage Hall on Boscawen Street still marks where the metal was proved before sale. From the 1730s smelting works at Newham drove a golden age of commerce, with as many as sixty cargo ships working the port. That metal-working instinct still runs through the city's machine shops and marine engineers, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off - so we test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
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