York · COSHH / HSG258
Statutory thorough examination and testing of local exhaust ventilation for York workshops and production sites, keeping fume and dust control compliant with COSHH and HSE guidance HSG258.
York
York is Britain's City of Chocolate - still home to Nestle's global confectionery centre - a walled city of around 202,000 that draws some 9 million visitors a year.
The signature trade is chocolate and confectionery - the cocoa and sugar dust, the roasting and coating fumes - alongside the food and drink and craft-brewing producers, the rail engineering, and the bioscience labs, across York Science Park and the Clifton Moor estate.
Every one of those York 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 York Science Park units to the smaller York workshops - with capture and face-velocity readings, a clear pass or remedial outcome and system labelling.
By sector
If a process captures fume, dust, mist or vapour at source, that capture system is LEV - and across York and the wider North Yorkshire it is your evidence under COSHH.
Dust and fume extraction over cocoa and sugar dispensing, roasting and coating, where fine organic dust is a health and a combustion risk.
Flour-dust, steam and brewing extraction across the food, drink and craft-brewing producers, where organic dust and vapour need capture at source.
Welding, grinding and fume extraction on the rail-engineering and fabrication lines - metal fume captured at the bench.
On-torch extraction, fume arms and downdraught benches across the fabrication shops that feed the Gloucestershire aerospace and rail trades. Since the HSE's 2019 reclassification, all welding fume - mild steel included - is treated as carcinogenic.
Spray-booth and prep-bay extraction at York 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 York, York St John and the York Science Park labs, to the containment their work demands.
On the ground in York
We are out under York's extraction every week. The proof that matters is the jobs, not a stock photo.
A chocolate and confectionery plant in York had a cocoa-powder dispensing hood with a completely blinded reverse-jet cartridge filter - the compressed-air pulsing had failed. We checked the pulse controller, found a stuck solenoid valve and measured the hood intake velocity. It failed on the pulse fault: the filter pressure drop was through the roof and the hood was barely capturing. The whole place was thick with a sweet cocoa scent, and it was strict hairnet and beard-snood compliance to get on the floor.
The test
Under HSG258 a statutory LEV test is no visual once-over. For a York 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 York Science Park 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 York line.
Where exposure is in question - a chocolate and confectionery process, say - sampling confirms whether control is actually protecting the people at the process.
The duty
COSHH Regulation 9 puts a hard duty on the employer: any LEV controlling a hazardous substance must have a thorough examination and test at least every fourteen months, with records kept for five years.
For most York sites - from the York Science Park 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 York 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 York duty-holder.
Each system tagged with status and next-due date, so compliance is visible on the Clifton Moor 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 chocolate and confectionery bay, a food and drink manufacturing bench and a lab fume cupboard can each sit on a different interval - we set the right one for every system.
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 York Science Park unit will ask to see.
Chocolate and confectionery, food and drink manufacturing, rail and engineering, welding and fabrication, vehicle body and paint, and the labs of the universities and science park - the trades clustered around York Science Park and Clifton Moor and across the wider North Yorkshire.
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 York, but a York Science Park fabrication shop and a Walmgate canopy are kept as the separate jobs they are.
Yes. A new spray booth or fume-arm install at a York 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 York Science Park and Clifton Moor, the university and hospital labs, and the wider North Yorkshire.
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 York Science Park or a smaller York workshop needs for their COSHH file.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
Stay compliant with COSHH and HSG258. No-obligation quote, UK-wide.