Walsall · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Walsall workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Walsall
Walsall is the town of a hundred trades - the heart of British saddlery and leatherwork - and a Black Country borough of around 284,000.
The signature trades are leather and metal - the saddlery dust and dyeing solvents, the electroplating and metal finishing, the lock and hardware making - across the Aldridge and Darlaston estates, with the fabrication, bodyshops and foundries between them.
Every Walsall 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 Aldridge plant to the single-bench Walsall units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Walsall employers and others across West Midlands it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Dust and solvent-fume extraction over the leather buffing, dyeing and finishing benches of the saddlery trade, where fine dust and solvent vapour need capture at source.
Lip and slot extraction over plating, anodising and coating tanks - corrosive acid mist and chromic fume where capture at the tank edge is the whole control.
Dust and mist extraction on the grinding, polishing and machining benches of the lock and hardware trade.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the fabrication units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Walsall 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 Walsall university campus and Walsall Manor Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Walsall
We are out under Walsall's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An architectural-ironmongery plating plant in Walsall had the acid-mist lateral exhaust on a zinc plating line badly salt-crystallised along the extraction slots. We measured the inlet velocities at 200mm increments and tested the main duct static suction. It failed on the partial slot occlusion - the reduced capture area was pulling acid mist back into the workers' breathing zone. In an atmosphere that corrosive, every stainless anemometer part got decontamination-washed straight after use.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Walsall 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 Aldridge 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 Walsall line.
Where exposure is in question - a leather and saddlery 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 Walsall sites - the Aldridge 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 Walsall 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 Walsall duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Darlaston 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 leather and saddlery bay, a metal finishing and plating bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Walsall, but an Aldridge fabrication shop and a Caldmore canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Walsall 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. We plan testing around production shifts at the Aldridge units, term-time access at the Walsall university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Aldridge and Darlaston, the university and hospital labs, and the wider West Midlands.
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 an Aldridge production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
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 Aldridge or a smaller Walsall workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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