Winchester · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Winchester workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Winchester
Winchester is the ancient capital of England in Hampshire, around 45,000, home to the longest medieval cathedral in Europe and to the Wessex of King Alfred.
The work is technology and light industry - the software and technology R and D, the light and precision engineering, and the printing and food production - across the Winnall Industrial Estate and Moorside Road units, with the bodyshops between them.
Wherever a Winchester 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 Winnall Industrial Estate units down to the smallest Winchester workshop, measuring capture and face velocity and issuing a plain pass-or-remedial result with every hood tagged.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Winchester and the rest of Hampshire it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Solder-fume, solvent and battery-lab extraction across the technology and research units, where fume and vapour need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and mist extraction across the light and precision-engineering units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Solvent-vapour, steam and mist extraction across the print and food-production units, where vapour and organic dust need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Winnall Industrial Estate and Moorside Road units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Winchester 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 University of Winchester and the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Winchester
We are out under Winchester's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A technology-research lab in Winchester had a solder-fume extraction arm on a rework bench pulling weak because a blast gate in the branch had drifted shut. We reset the gate, checked the capture at the tip with a smoke pen and measured the branch flow. It failed at first on the low capture and passed once the gate was reopened, the fume drawn cleanly off the iron. Rosin-based flux is a known asthmagen, so the fume path was verified along its full length.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Winchester 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 Winnall 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 Winchester line.
Where exposure is in question - a technology and software r and d 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.
On most Winchester sites - the Winnall 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 Winchester 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 Winchester duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Moorside Road 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 technology and software r and d bay, a light and precision engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Technology and software R and D, light and precision engineering, printing and food production, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the university and hospital - the trades clustered around Winnall Industrial Estate and Moorside Road and across the wider Hampshire.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Winnall Industrial Estate and Moorside Road, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Hampshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Winchester 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 Winnall Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Winchester university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
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 Winchester, but a Winnall Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Jewry Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
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 Winnall 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.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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