COSHH, law & TExT
Fourteen is a strange number for a legal interval - and reading it as a licence to test whenever suits is exactly how firms drift out of compliance.
The short answer
COSHH Regulation 9 sets the outside limit between thorough examinations at 14 months for most LEV systems. The extra two months on top of a year exist so that a test due in a busy period can be scheduled without breaching the law - not so the effective interval can be stretched. In practice, sensible duty holders book annually and treat 14 months as the line they must never cross.
The detail
A fixed annual date is easy to miss when a site is busy, so the regulation gives a small, defined tolerance rather than a hard anniversary that a single delayed booking would breach. The number is drawn from the regulations and repeated in HSG258; the effect is that a system tested in, say, March one year can lawfully be tested by the following May, but no later.
The trap is reading that tolerance as flexibility. Every extra week beyond a true annual cycle is a week in which airflow, filters and fans can degrade unmeasured. Treating 14 months as a target rather than a ceiling is one of the most common ways an otherwise diligent business ends up non-compliant on paper.
What it means for you
The 14-month figure only applies to systems outside COSHH Schedule 4. Schedule 4 names higher-risk processes - certain blasting and similar operations - where the statutory maximum compresses to one or six months regardless of how recently the system was tested. Defaulting every system on a site to 14 months creates instant exposure the moment a Schedule 4 process is present.
Beyond Schedule 4, HSG258 expects you to shorten the interval where risk demands it: high-toxicity substances, rapid filter loading, multi-shift running, or a system whose past reports show performance sliding. In those cases the defensible interval is the shorter one your risk assessment supports - the 14 months is the outer wall, not the plan.
The service behind the guide
Every test we carry out comes with the next due date stated plainly and set to your real risk, not a blanket 14 months - so your programme is defensible rather than just technically inside the limit.
Questions
Because COSHH Regulation 9 sets 14 months as the legal maximum between thorough examinations. The two months beyond a year are scheduling tolerance, so a test can be arranged around busy periods without breaching the limit - most firms still book annually.
A maximum. It is the latest you can lawfully leave a system between tests, not the recommended interval. Reading it as a target is a common route to non-compliance because performance can drift in the extra weeks.
When the process is named in COSHH Schedule 4 - the interval then drops to one or six months - or where HSG258 risk factors apply, such as high-toxicity substances, rapid filter loading, multi-shift use or a history of declining test results.
You are in breach of COSHH Regulation 9. The gap cannot be back-dated, and if an inspector or insurer asks for evidence of continuous control, the overdue period is itself a finding against you.
From the date of the last thorough examination and test. The next test must be completed within 14 months of that date, which is why the report always states the next due date.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
We will check your last report and logbook, confirm your true due date and get you back inside the 14-month limit with a clean record. Call or email to arrange it.