Yeovil · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for Yeovil workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
Yeovil
Yeovil is the Home of British Helicopters, a Somerset town of around 50,000, built on Leonardo Helicopters and a glove-making heritage that gives the town its name.
The signature trade is aerospace and defence - the helicopter manufacturing and airframe engineering of the Leonardo works, the aerospace composites and precision machining, and the surface finishing - across the Lynx Trading Estate and Houndstone estates, with the bodyshops between them.
Every one of those Yeovil processes puts fume, dust, mist or vapour into the air, and COSHH requires it controlled at source - which means local exhaust ventilation, thoroughly examined and tested at least every fourteen months. We test the LEV across all of it - from the Lynx Trading Estate units to the smaller Yeovil workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
Any system that draws fume, dust, mist or vapour off at source counts as LEV, and across Yeovil and the rest of Somerset it is the evidence COSHH expects you to hold.
Weld-fume, composite-dust and paint extraction across the helicopter and airframe-engineering units, the defining trade of the Home of British Helicopters, where metal fume and composite dust need capture at source.
Machining-mist, grinding and resin-vapour extraction across the composites and precision-engineering units, where fine dust and vapour need capture proven.
Mist, vapour and fume extraction across the plating, anodising and surface-treatment units, where process mist needs capture at source.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the Lynx Trading Estate and Houndstone units. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at Yeovil 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 Yeovil College and Yeovil District Hospital, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in Yeovil
We are out under Yeovil's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A helicopter-component machining shop in Yeovil had an oil-mist extraction unit over a five-axis mill letting a fine metalworking-fluid haze escape because the coalescing filter had loaded solid. We measured the capture at the enclosure and checked the mist-collector differential. It failed on the saturated filter and the mist breakthrough, even with the fan pulling to spec. The shop machined titanium and aluminium airframe parts, so the swarf and coolant were handled to the aerospace housekeeping standard during the test.
The test
A statutory LEV test under HSG258 is not a visual once-over. On a Yeovil 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 Lynx 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 Yeovil line.
Where exposure is in question - an aerospace and defence manufacturing 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.
For the great majority of Yeovil sites, from the Lynx Trading Estate units to the one-man workshops, the fourteen-month deadline is what catches people out: once it passes the system is non-compliant regardless of its actual state. We carry out the examination, label every hood with its status and next-due date, and issue the report an HSE inspector or your insurer expects to see - and if a point fails, you get the number, the cause and the fix rather than a bare fail.
How it runs
Full visual and structural check of every hood, duct run, filter and fan across the Yeovil 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 Yeovil duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Houndstone Business 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. An aerospace and defence manufacturing bay, an aerospace composites and precision machining bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
Yes. We plan testing around production shifts at the Lynx Trading Estate units, term-time access at the Yeovil 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 Yeovil, but a Lynx Trading Estate fabrication shop and a Middle Street canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Aerospace and defence manufacturing, aerospace composites and precision machining, surface finishing and treatment, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the college and hospital - the trades clustered around Lynx Trading Estate and Houndstone Business Park and across the wider Somerset.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a Yeovil 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 - the industrial estates and workshops around Lynx Trading Estate and Houndstone Business Park, the university and hospital labs, and the wider Somerset.
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 Lynx Trading Estate or a smaller Yeovil workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
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