Worcester · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Worcester workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Worcester
Worcester is a Worcestershire cathedral city of around 104,000 on the River Severn, home to Worcester Bosch boilers and the Lea and Perrins sauce works.
The signature work is boiler and heating manufacturing - the Worcester Bosch welding, brazing and paint lines - alongside food and drink manufacturing and precision engineering, across the Blackpole Trading Estate and Shrub Hill estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every Worcester 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 Blackpole Trading Estate plant to the single-bench Worcester units, logging capture and face-velocity figures and returning a clear pass-or-remedial outcome with each hood identified and 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 Worcester and across Worcestershire it stands as their COSHH evidence.
Weld-fume, brazing and paint extraction across the boiler and heating manufacturing lines, where metal fume and coating vapour need capture at source.
Machining, grinding and fume extraction across the precision-engineering units, where metal dust and mist 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 Blackpole Trading Estate and Shrub Hill units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Worcester 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 Worcester and Worcestershire Royal Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Worcester
We are out under Worcester's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
An architectural glass and staining workshop in Worcester had the extract hoods over a lead-glazing station strangled by flexible ducts kinked at 90 degrees behind the bench partitions. We straightened the runs, secured them with heavy-duty saddle clips and checked the capture velocities. It passed once the kinks were out, with the capture up from a failing 0.25 to a safe 0.70 metres per second. The studio was restoring cathedral glass, so we worked carefully around the delicate half-finished panels.
The test
A statutory LEV test to HSG258 is far more than a look round. On a Worcester 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 Blackpole Trading 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 Worcester line.
Where exposure is in question - a boiler and heating manufacturing process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
The duty is written into COSHH Regulation 9: where LEV controls a hazardous substance, the employer must have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months and keep the records for five years.
Across most Worcester sites - the Blackpole Trading Estate plant and the smaller units alike - it is the fourteen-month interval that trips people up, because a lapsed test leaves the system non-compliant from that date whatever its real condition. We run the examination, mark every hood with its result and next-due date, and produce the report your insurer or an HSE inspector will look for, and any failed point comes back with its reading, its cause and the fix rather than a bare red tag.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Worcester 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 Worcester duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Shrub Hill 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 boiler and heating manufacturing bay, a precision engineering bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes - the industrial estates and workshops around Blackpole Trading Estate and Shrub Hill, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Worcestershire.
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 Worcester, but a Blackpole Trading Estate fabrication shop and a Friar 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 Blackpole Trading Estate or a smaller Worcester workshop needs for their COSHH file.
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 Blackpole Trading Estate production line we can usually fit the re-test around your shifts. We will not pass a system that does not control exposure.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Blackpole Trading Estate units, term-time access at the Worcester university labs, and normal hours at smaller workshops, so the examination never stops the line.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Worcester 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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