Cost & commercial
A failed LEV test is not the end of the story - it is the start of a repair-or-replace decision. Costing it well means understanding what failed, whether a fix will hold, and when a system is so far from the standard that only replacement will ever pass.
The short answer
A failed LEV test is not the end of the story - it is the start of a repair-or-replace decision. Costing it well means understanding what failed, whether a fix will hold, and when a system is so far from the standard that only replacement will ever pass.
The detail
When a hood or system fails, the examiner attaches a red failed label and issues a short emergency report describing what is wrong and a prioritised list of remedial actions. If the system is not adequately controlling exposure, the practical answer is to stop using it until it is put right. The red label only comes off once a competent person has rechecked the corrected system and confirmed it controls exposure again, so a retest is part of the cost from the outset.
Most failures are repairs. Wear items - slipping fan belts, worn bearings, loaded or damaged filters, leaking or partly blocked ductwork, a knocked hood or a drifted damper - can be fixed and the system brought back to its benchmarked performance. These are the cheaper outcomes, and regular servicing between tests is what keeps most fails in this category rather than the next.
Some failures are not repairs at all. Where the fault is in the design - a fan that was never big enough to hold capture velocity, a hood too small or too far from the task, ducts that cannot carry the transport velocity - no amount of maintenance will pass it, because every service simply returns the system to an inadequate baseline. You cannot maintain your way out of a design fault, and the honest cost there is redesign or replacement of the inadequate elements.
Costing the decision means weighing more than the invoice. A cheap repair that leaves an under-designed system marginal will fail again, so the real comparison is the whole-life cost: repeat repairs and retests against a system that is right once. Downtime counts too, since a system left on a red label may mean pausing the process it serves until the fix is done.
What it means for you
The useful question is not simply repair or replace, but what will hold. If the failure is wear and the design is sound, repair and retest is the sensible, cheaper route. If the readings show the system was always marginal, spending on repairs is throwing money at a baseline that cannot pass, and replacement of the failing elements is the cheaper answer over any realistic horizon.
A good assessment gives you that clarity: what failed, whether it is wear or design, what each option costs to put right and retest, and how likely each is to hold to the next examination. With that in front of you, the repair-or-replace decision stops being a gamble and becomes a straightforward commercial choice.
The service behind the guide
Questions
The examiner fits a red failed label and issues an emergency report with prioritised remedial actions. The label comes off only after a competent person rechecks the fix.
Repair if the failure is wear and the design is sound. Replace or redesign if the fault is in the design, because maintenance cannot pass an inadequate system.
Because every service returns the system to the same inadequate baseline. An undersized fan or hood never held capture velocity, so only redesign will pass.
If it is not adequately controlling exposure, yes - stop using it until it is put right, then have it rechecked and the red label removed.
On whole-life cost. Repeat repairs and retests on a marginal system can cost more than replacing the failing elements once.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
If your system has failed, we will assess what it needs and quote the honest repair-or-replace choice.