Weston-super-Mare · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Weston-super-Mare workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Weston-super-Mare
Weston-super-Mare is a Victorian seaside resort in North Somerset of around 82,000 on the Bristol Channel, with the Grand Pier and the world's largest helicopter museum.
The work is aerospace and coastal trades - the aviation and precision engineering of the RAF Locking and airfield heritage, the food and drink manufacturing, and the tourism and hospitality plant - across the Winterstoke Road and Locking Parklands estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Weston-super-Mare 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 Winterstoke Road units down to the smallest Weston-super-Mare 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 Weston-super-Mare employers and others across Somerset it is the record COSHH looks for first.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the aviation and precision-engineering units, a trade rooted in the town's airfield heritage, where metal dust and mist need capture at source.
Weld-fume, machining-mist and paint extraction across the advanced-manufacturing lines, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture proven.
Steam, dust and mist extraction across the food and drink producers, where organic dust is both a health and a combustion risk.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Winterstoke Road and Locking Parklands units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Weston-super-Mare 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 Weston College and Weston General Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Weston-super-Mare
We are out under Weston-super-Mare's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A marine upholstery and boatyard workshop in Weston-super-Mare had the solvent-vapour hood over an adhesive spraying bench leaking air through an unsealed inspection hatch. We renewed the foam gasket on the hatch, tightened the toggle clamps and tested the face velocity with a smoke pen. It passed once the hatch was sealed, with the capture back to an optimal 0.55 metres per second. The heavy seaside moisture meant checking for early galvanic corrosion on the external termination cowl.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Weston-super-Mare 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 Winterstoke Road 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 Weston-super-Mare line.
Where exposure is in question - an aviation and precision engineering 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.
For most Weston-super-Mare sites - from the Winterstoke Road units to the smaller workshops - the fourteen-month clock is the one that bites: miss it and the system is non-compliant the day it lapses, whatever its condition. We examine, label each hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer will ask to see. If something fails, you get the reading, the cause and the fix - not just a red sticker.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Weston-super-Mare 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 Weston-super-Mare duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Locking Parklands 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 aviation and precision engineering bay, an advanced manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Weston-super-Mare 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.
Aviation and precision engineering, advanced manufacturing, food and drink manufacturing, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Winterstoke Road and Locking Parklands and across the wider Somerset.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Winterstoke Road units, term-time access at the Weston-super-Mare 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 Winterstoke Road unit will ask to see.
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 Weston-super-Mare, but a Winterstoke Road fabrication shop and a High Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Winterstoke Road or a smaller Weston-super-Mare workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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