By workplace & process
A single safety alert reset the rules for every workshop that welds. Understanding it explains why inspectors now treat welding fume so seriously.
The short answer
The 2019 shift is often described as new law. It is not - COSHH already required adequate control of hazardous substances. What changed is how strictly the HSE enforces that duty for welding fume, following scientific evidence that reclassified the fume as a carcinogen. The practical effect is that controls which used to be tolerated are now treated as inadequate.
The detail
In February 2019 the HSE issued a safety bulletin, STSU1, after the International Agency for Research on Cancer found that exposure to mild steel welding fume can cause lung cancer, and possibly kidney cancer, in humans. The Workplace Health Expert Committee endorsed reclassifying mild steel welding fume as a human carcinogen. With immediate effect, the HSE strengthened its enforcement expectation for all welding fume, because general ventilation does not achieve the control now required.
The specific expectations are blunt. Suitable engineering controls - typically LEV - are required for all welding carried out indoors. Suitable respiratory protective equipment is required for welding outdoors, where LEV is impractical. And this applies regardless of duration: the HSE will no longer accept welding undertaken without exposure control in place, because there is no known safe level of exposure to a carcinogen. Risk assessments have to be updated to reflect the change.
What it means for you
The change turned welding fume into a focus for proactive inspection. An inspector visiting a workshop that welds expects to see engineering control at source, an LEV system that has been thoroughly examined and tested within the last fourteen months, RPE where residual fume remains, and a risk assessment that reflects the carcinogen classification rather than an older, more relaxed view. Where LEV is missing, misused or unproven, enforcement can run from improvement notices to prohibition of the process.
For an employer the message is straightforward. The old defence - that welding was brief, or that the workshop was airy - no longer holds. Control has to be provided, used, maintained and evidenced. The LEV test is the piece that turns a claim of control into something an inspector can verify. It also protects the business itself: a current, clear test report is the difference between demonstrating compliance in minutes during a visit and arguing about it after an incident, when the stakes - and the potential penalties for an uncontrolled carcinogen - are considerably higher. Keeping the examination current, and acting on its findings, is among the cheapest insurance a welding business can hold.
The service behind the guide
We examine welding extraction against the standard the HSE now enforces and give you a clear, dated report, so a visit finds evidence rather than gaps.
Questions
No. COSHH already required adequate control of welding fume. The HSE strengthened how it enforces that duty after fume was reclassified as a carcinogen, so previously tolerated controls are now treated as inadequate.
It is the HSE safety bulletin issued in February 2019 that set out the strengthened enforcement expectation for all welding fume, including mild steel, following the reclassification of the fume as a human carcinogen.
Yes. The HSE will no longer accept welding without suitable exposure controls regardless of duration, because there is no known safe level of exposure to a carcinogen.
Engineering control at source, an LEV system tested within the last fourteen months, RPE for any residual fume, and a risk assessment that reflects the carcinogen classification.
Enforcement can range from an improvement notice through to a prohibition notice stopping the process, with the possibility of prosecution where the failure is serious.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We test welding LEV to the performance inspectors now expect and flag anything that would not hold up. Call or email to arrange it.