Wishaw · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Wishaw workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Wishaw
Wishaw is a Lanarkshire town of around 30,000 people, some seventeen miles south-east of Glasgow, whose name was forged in iron and steel - the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company raised its furnaces here in 1844, and with the neighbouring Coltness works at Newmains this became one of the earliest and most important centres of iron and steel manufacture in Scotland.
Its working economy still leans on engineering, food production and the fabrication trades, much of it grouped in the units at Netherton Industrial Estate and Excelsior Park on the southern edge of the town.
Each of those Wishaw processes throws fume, dust, mist or vapour into the workplace air, and COSHH demands it is captured at source - that capture system is local exhaust ventilation, and it must be thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We cover the lot, from the Netherton Industrial Estate units to the one-bench Wishaw workshops, taking capture and face-velocity readings and leaving a clear pass or remedial verdict with the hoods labelled.
By sector
Where fume, dust, mist or vapour is pulled away at the point it is made, that is LEV - and for employers in Wishaw and across Lanarkshire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Oil-mist and coolant-mist extraction on CNC machining centres and heavy plant, from the off-highway truck and earth-moving lines that Terex and Rokbak built on Lanarkshire's heavy-engineering heritage to the precision shops working the Netherton units.
Steam canopies and flour-dust control in Wishaw's bakeries and food producers, from long-standing family bakers like Baynes and Denholm to the packing and production units on Netherton Industrial Estate.
Fine-dust extraction and downdraught tables at Wishaw cabinet shops and joinery works, where hardwood and MDF dust is captured at the tool before it reaches the lungs.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Netherton Industrial Estate and Excelsior Park units, heirs to the town's steel-fabrication trade. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Wishaw 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 University Hospital Wishaw and the college and laboratory settings across the district, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Wishaw
We are out under Wishaw's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A well-known bakery in Wishaw had its flour store extraction pulling short, down to a filter well overdue for replacement. We took benchmark readings, visualised capture at each hood and dealt with a leaking connection. Capture came back within benchmark once the unsealed joint was sorted, with a full LEV report for the COSHH file. The workshop manager kept us going with bacon rolls through the morning.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Wishaw system it settles three questions: is the ductwork and plant intact, does it still capture at the hood, and does that capture still match the design.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Netherton 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 Wishaw line.
Where exposure is in question - a precision engineering and manufacturing 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 Wishaw sites - from the Netherton Industrial Estate 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 Wishaw 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 Wishaw duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Excelsior Park 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 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.
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 Netherton Industrial Estate or a smaller Wishaw workshop needs for their COSHH file.
precision engineering and manufacturing, food and drink production, woodworking and joinery, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and laboratory fume cupboards - the trades clustered around Netherton Industrial Estate and Excelsior Park and across the wider Lanarkshire.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Wishaw 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 Netherton Industrial Estate units, term-time access at the Wishaw 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 Wishaw, but a Netherton Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Main 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 Netherton 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
The Coltness Iron Company was founded in 1837 to work the coal and ironstone of the Coltness estate at Newmains, and by 1844 the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company had raised its own furnaces at Wishaw, converting to open-hearth steel in 1894. For the better part of a century the town lived by iron and steel, and that heavy-engineering instinct still runs through its machine shops and fabrication units. 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.