LEV Testing is a legal requirement for compliance with health and safety standards and test reports often form part of a company's insurance. Inadequate testing can result in employers being prosecuted, insurance being invalidated and employees falling ill.
LEV Testing is the process of thoroughly inspecting and evaluating a local exhaust ventilation system against the commissioning report’s performance, industry standards, and HSE guidelines. It includes airflow and pressure measurements, as well as checks on the effectiveness of contamination exposure control. All equipment, including hoods, filters and ducts, is also subject to additional inspections.
According to the HSE’s Occupational Lung Disease in Great Britain 2022 report, 12,000 lung disease deaths each year are estimated to be linked to past exposures at work. This has led to increasingly stringent guidelines and statutory requirements for Local Exhaust Ventilation.
HSE published the third edition of HSG258 ‘Controlling airborne contaminants at work: A guide to local exhaust ventilation (LEV)’ in 2017. This guide provides guidance on the design of new local exhaust ventilation (LEV) equipment. It describes the principles of deciding on, designing, commissioning and testing effective LEV.
LEV systems must be tested every 14 months.
Regular LEV testing by a competent person is a legal requirement of COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) regulations.
This applies to all oil mist, welding fume, smoke and dust extraction units that you currently have on site. This examination must be undertaken by a competent person and the tests and reports must conform to HSE standards. HSG258 provides the recommended procedures to achieve these statutory requirements.
Our P601, P602, and P604 qualified engineers perform COSHH compliant LEV testing for systems that control contaminants such as oil mist, dust and fume. We provide reports in digital format which make them simple to file and retrieve whenever needed.
The results are compared with the requirements specified in the original system design and our expert analysis, based on 50 years’ experience in the manufacture and design of LEV systems, allows us to provide practical advice and recommendations.
Filtermist LEV reports include photos and/or schematic diagrams showing the Test Points, which are also clearly identified on the ducting, as required by the HSE. Follow this link for more details on our comprehensive LEV Test Reports.
LEV equipment for air flow monitoring and record keeping systems as specified in HSG258 can be supplied as part of Filtermist’s service and can also be purchased directly from Filtermist. Contact us to order.
Filtermist will LEV test, check and quantify a system's performance with these testing methods.
Only the above tests specific to the system being tested will then quantify the system's performance and control the exposure of the harmful contaminate from the personnel to a level as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP).
Filtermist LEV Test Reports are comprised of five sections:
Supplementary to these sections is a one page system appraisal, workshop schematics, detailed measurement data and a full breakdown of the equipment used in the examination of the workplace.
This report can be used to form part of a company's insurance requirement and copies should be kept for a period of 10 years.
Replacing HSG37 and HSG54, describing the principles and good practice of deciding on, designing, commissioning and testing LEV.
Further information on COSHH and Local Exhaust Ventilation can be found on the HSE website:
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