Washington · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Washington workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Washington
Washington is a Tyne and Wear town in the City of Sunderland, around 67,000, a 1964 New Town built around industry and the ancestral home of George Washington's family.
The signature trade is automotive - the vehicle manufacturing and the EV-battery gigafactory of the Nissan cluster, the advanced manufacturing and electronics, and the chemicals - across the Crowther Industrial Estate and Stephenson estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Washington 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 Crowther Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Washington 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 Washington employers and others across Tyne and Wear it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Weld-fume, spray-booth and press-mist extraction across the vehicle-manufacturing and battery lines of the automotive cluster, the defining trade of the New Town, where fume and coating vapour need capture at source.
Solder-fume, machining-mist and coating extraction across the advanced-manufacturing and electronics units, where fume and mist need capture proven.
Vapour, dust and process-fume extraction across the chemical units, a trade rooted in the town's chemical-works history, where process vapour needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Crowther Industrial Estate and Stephenson units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Washington 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 local college and Sunderland Royal Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Washington
We are out under Washington's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An automotive body and paint shop on the Crowther Industrial Estate in Washington had a spray-booth extraction failing its airflow check because the exhaust filters were blinded with overspray. We measured the booth face velocity and the filter differential and checked the cross-draught. It failed on the low airflow from the blinded filters, so the booth could not hold clean spraying conditions until they were changed. Two-pack paints release isocyanates, so air-fed breathing protection and full booth lockout were in place.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Washington 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 Crowther 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 Washington line.
Where exposure is in question - an automotive manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
For the great majority of Washington sites, from the Crowther Industrial Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Washington 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 Washington duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Stephenson 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. An automotive manufacturing bay, an advanced manufacturing and electronics 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 Crowther Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Washington university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Automotive manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and electronics, chemicals, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Crowther Industrial Estate and Stephenson Industrial Estate and across the wider Tyne and Wear.
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 Washington, but a Crowther Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Galleries canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Crowther Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Crowther Industrial Estate and Stephenson Industrial Estate, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Tyne and Wear.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Washington 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.
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