Walton-on-Thames · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Walton-on-Thames workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Walton-on-Thames
Walton-on-Thames is an affluent commuter town on the south bank of the River Thames in the borough of Elmbridge, about fifteen miles south-west of central London. It carries an outsized place in film history: in 1899 Cecil Hepworth set up a studio here that grew into the birthplace of British cinema, later run as Nettlefold Studios, and the town's riverside at Cowey Sale is where William Camden believed Julius Caesar forded the Thames.
Behind the prosperous high street the town keeps a solid base of light industry, motor trade and workshop firms, much of it grouped at North Weylands Industrial Estate on Molesey Road and in the flexible workshop units around Enterprise House off Terrace Road.
Wherever a Walton-on-Thames 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 North Weylands Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Walton-on-Thames workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
A system that catches fume, dust, mist or vapour at the point it is released is LEV, and for Walton-on-Thames employers and others across Surrey it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC and machining work in the units at North Weylands Industrial Estate, where fine airborne mist is drawn off at the machine before it drifts across the shop floor.
Steam-canopy and dust control in the town's bakeries and food units, a fitting trade for the place that was home to the Birds Eye and Unilever headquarters at Walton Court until 2008.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Walton cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it can reach the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the North Weylands and Molesey Road workshops. Since the HSE reclassified welding fume in 2019, all of it, mild steel included, is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Walton bodyshops and the town's long motor trade, from Hersham and Walton Motors, the world's first Aston Martin dealership, onward. 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 laboratories, technical firms and film and media workshops the town supports, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Walton-on-Thames
We are out under Walton-on-Thames's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A family-owned school in Walton-on-Thames had the extraction on its woodwork sanders under-pulling, traced to a leaking flexible connection. I ran a full thorough examination and test, covering velocity readings, smoke visualisation and a filter check. Clearing a tired filter brought the system up to control standards, and I signed off an HSG258 report for them. Working a single overnight shift meant the unit could open as normal the next morning.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Walton-on-Thames 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 North Weylands 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 Walton-on-Thames line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and light manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
Under Regulation 9 of COSHH the obligation sits squarely with the employer - any LEV that controls a hazardous substance needs a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, and the records held for five years.
Across most Walton-on-Thames sites - the North Weylands 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 Walton-on-Thames 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 Walton-on-Thames duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Enterprise House 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 light 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 North Weylands Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Walton-on-Thames university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Walton-on-Thames 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 North Weylands Industrial Estate or a smaller Walton-on-Thames workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around North Weylands Industrial Estate and Enterprise House, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Surrey.
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 North Weylands 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 North Weylands 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.
Local knowledge
In 1899 Cecil Hepworth leased a house at Hurst Grove and built a film studio with its own electric lighting and laboratory, and from it came the 1903 Alice in Wonderland and, by the studio's peak, a catalogue running into thousands of films. That inventive, hands-on engineering instinct still runs through Walton's machine shops and workshop units today, and every one of them carries a duty to control the mist, fume and dust its work throws off. We test and certify local exhaust ventilation to the standard COSHH sets, so the extraction reads true against its design figures.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.