Woking · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Woking workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Woking
Woking is a Surrey town in a borough of around 104,000, home of the McLaren motorsport and automotive group and of England's first purpose-built mosque, opened in 1889.
The signature trade is advanced engineering - the motorsport and automotive composites of the McLaren cluster, the precision manufacturing, and the tech and pharma R and D - across the Sheerwater Industrial Estate and Forsyth Road units, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Woking process that gives off fume, dust, mist or vapour falls under COSHH, which requires the contamination held at source by local exhaust ventilation and that LEV thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test right across the site, from the Sheerwater Industrial Estate plant to the single-bench Woking units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and labelled.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across Woking and the wider Surrey it is your evidence under COSHH.
Weld-fume, carbon-fibre dust and resin-vapour extraction across the motorsport and automotive-composites units, the defining trade of the McLaren cluster, where conductive fine dust needs capture at source.
Machining, grinding and mist extraction across the precision-engineering and advanced-manufacturing units, where metal dust and mist need capture proven.
Solder-fume, solvent and coating extraction across the technology and research units, where fume and vapour need capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Sheerwater Industrial Estate and Forsyth 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 Woking 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 St Peter's Hospital in nearby Chertsey, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Woking
We are out under Woking's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An advanced-composites workshop in Woking had a carbon-fibre trimming bench whose downdraught extraction was pulling weak, letting fine machining dust drift off the table edge. We cleaned the clogged extract grille, checked the collector had capacity and traversed the capture velocity across the working zone. It failed at first on the low face velocity and passed once the grille and filter were cleared, the downdraught back at its design figure. Carbon dust is conductive and a respiratory hazard, so full P3 respiratory protection and grounded tooling were used throughout.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a Woking system it has to answer three things - whether the system is sound, whether it still draws at the hood, and whether that draw holds to what it was designed to deliver.
Ductwork, hoods, filters, fans and dampers checked for damage, blockage and leakage across the Sheerwater 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 Woking line.
Where exposure is in question - an advanced automotive and composites 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 Woking sites - the Sheerwater 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 Woking 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 Woking duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Forsyth 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. An advanced automotive and composites bay, a precision manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 Woking, but a Sheerwater Industrial Estate fabrication shop and a Commercial Way 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 Sheerwater Industrial Estate or a smaller Woking workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Sheerwater Industrial Estate and Forsyth Road, 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 Sheerwater Industrial Estate unit will ask to see.
Advanced automotive and composites, precision manufacturing, technology and pharma R and D, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Sheerwater Industrial Estate and Forsyth Road and across the wider Surrey.
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 Sheerwater 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.
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