LEV testing cost, counted in hoods, not systems

The 14 month clock, and the shorter clocks inside it

The interval is statutory. COSHH Regulation 9 requires a thorough examination and test of local exhaust ventilation at least once every 14 months, and for the processes listed in Schedule 4 of the regulations, at the shorter intervals that schedule sets. The records of every test, and of the repairs it triggered, must be kept for at least five years.

For budgeting, 14 months is a ceiling, not a rhythm. A site that books at the limit is one access problem away from running an untested system, so the sensible programme books around 12 months and keeps a margin. Where a process sits in Schedule 4, or where a risk assessment shows fast deterioration, the clock is shorter and the annual figure carries more than one test.

New and modified systems start their own clocks. A freshly installed system should be commissioned, which creates the benchmark data the next section leans on, and its first thorough examination falls due within the same statutory window. Extending a duct run or adding a hood changes the system’s balance, so a modification is a sensible trigger for a test even when the calendar says otherwise.

The interval also interacts with everything else on this page: a site whose LEV falls due together, on one planned visit, pays the fixed costs once. A site whose systems drift onto different anniversaries pays them every time.

Welding fume, wood dust, solvents: the process sets the scrutiny

What the extraction captures changes how it is tested, so the process behind each hood belongs on the quote request alongside the count.

Welding and metalworking fume

Since the HSE reclassified welding fume, enforcement expectation around fume control has hardened, and on hood extraction is judged closely on capture at the torch position. Moveable capture hoods fail more tests through being parked out of position than through any mechanical defect, so the test watches real welding, and the report says so.

Wood dust

Woodworking extraction serves machines that produce dust faster than almost any other process, hardwood dust is a carcinogen, and the systems run hard. Expect close attention to duct velocities, because wood dust settles in slow ducts and settled dust is both a control failure and a fire load.

Solvents, mists and everything lighter

Spray areas, degreasing tanks and laboratory arms capture vapours and mists rather than chips, which shifts the testing toward face velocities and containment. These are also the systems most likely to have no commissioning data, because they were installed as furniture rather than as control measures, so benchmark setting appears on these quotes most often.

Mixed process sites should say so plainly on the quote request. A unit that welds in one bay and sprays in another is two testing disciplines on one visit, and a provider who knows that in advance sends the right instruments and the right time allowance rather than improvising half of it.

None of this changes the statutory shape, the same Regulation 9 test at the same maximum interval, but it moves the minutes per point, and an accurate quote prices the process, not just the point count.

What a thorough examination and test actually measures

The statutory test is a three part product, and knowing the parts is how you judge whether a cheap quote is buying the same thing. A thorough visual examination of the system’s condition: hoods, ducts, dampers, filters, fan and discharge. Measurement of the system’s performance: airflow and velocities at each hood and duct test point, pressures across filters, and where the contaminant demands it, checks of capture at the working position. And a judgement: whether the system still adequately controls exposure, made against the figures it was designed to achieve.

The report closes the loop with labels and dates: each hood carries its verdict, the system carries its next test date, and where providers fit test labels at the hoods, the shop floor can see the status without opening a file. Labels are convenience, the report is the legal record, and the five year retention duty applies to the record.

The judgement is the product. Numbers without a verdict are a data sheet, not a test. Every hood in our reports carries its readings, the benchmark they were judged against, and a plain conclusion, which is what an HSE inspector reads first and what the P601 qualification exists to stand behind.

The measurements themselves are judged against the benchmarks in the HSE’s HSG258 guidance and, above all, against the system’s own design figures, which is where the next section takes over. What matters at the pricing stage is that all three parts are in the quote, because each is cheap to drop and expensive to discover missing.

A system can hum along sounding busy while capturing almost nothing, a saturated filter or a crushed duct upstream is silent at the workbench. The test exists because the failure mode is invisible, which is also why the visual examination and the measurements belong together rather than as separable line items.

Commissioning data: the missing paperwork that costs real money

The test judges the system against what it was designed to achieve, and that design data comes from the commissioning report the installer should have left behind. When it exists, every examination is a clean comparison. When it does not, the first test has to establish benchmarks instead: a competent person deciding, from the process and the contaminant, what adequate control looks like for each hood, and recording it so every future test has a baseline.

When new extraction is installed, make the commissioning report a condition of the final payment and file it in the logbook the same week. It is a single document that lowers the cost of every test the system will ever have, and chasing the installer for it two years later almost never works.

Benchmark setting is honest, necessary work, and it is also a one off cost your quote should name rather than bury. If a provider tests a benchmark less system and the report shows readings judged against nothing, the document will not survive contact with an inspector. Ask any LEV quote one question: what will the measurements be compared against. The answer tells you whether the price covers a test or a printout.

Access, height and the shape of the site

After the hood count, access moves LEV pricing most. Extraction lives in awkward places by design: fans on roofs, ducting at height, filter houses in yards, discharge stacks above the weather line. Reading a duct test point six metres up takes powered access or safe roof access, and both cost less arranged in advance than discovered on the day.

The shape of the working day matters too. Systems are tested running, with the processes they serve in realistic use, a welding hood is judged while welding happens under it. That means the visit is planned with production, not against it: a morning where the shop runs normally while the engineer works through the hoods beats an artificial demonstration every time, and costs nothing extra to arrange.

Estates spread across buildings behave like scattered LOLER fleets: each building visited separately carries its own fixed costs, while one planned attendance walking the whole estate carries them once. Where a site runs several small systems, the estate wide visit is nearly always the cheaper year, and it also puts every system onto the same anniversary, which pays again at every renewal.

• Declare roof fans, high ducting and confined runs when you send the hood count
• Plan the visit for a normal working period so capture is tested against real use
• Have filter access, keys and isolation knowledge available on the day
• Tell us about processes that only run sometimes, so they are running when it counts

Remedials and the retest: budgeting for the second visit

Around half the value of a good LEV programme is what happens after a hood fails its benchmark. The report lists the remedial actions, blocked filter, slipped belt, hood moved away from the work, holed flex duct, and once they are fixed, the failed points are retested so the record shows control restored, not just work done.

The budgeting mistake is treating the retest as a surprise. Ours is priced on the original quote: a follow up attendance rate and the per point retest cost, stated before the first test happens. A provider whose quote is silent on retests has either never failed a hood, which is not credible, or prices them freshly each time, which is where cheap first visits earn their money back.

The cheapest retest is the one that never happens. Most failed points trace to maintenance that lapsed between tests, filters, belts and flex ducts, and a site that runs the simple between test checks in the next section rarely pays for second visits at all.

The LEV logbook: the folder that keeps every future quote down

The cheapest LEV programme belongs to the site with the best folder. The logbook, paper or digital, holds the commissioning report, every test report, the weekly check records and the remedial history, and it works on the price from three directions at once.

It makes quoting instant: the hood count, benchmarks and access notes are already written down, so the quote is fixed from the file rather than a survey. It makes testing faster, because the engineer walks in knowing the system instead of reconstructing it. And it makes failures cheaper, because a hood trending downward across three reports gets a belt or a filter before it becomes a failed point and a retest.

It is also the first thing an HSE inspector asks for. The five year record duty means the reports must exist somewhere, and a site that produces the folder in one motion has usually ended the conversation. A site that goes looking has usually started one.

If no logbook exists, starting one costs an afternoon: gather what paperwork survives, photograph every hood, and let the next test report become page one. We hand reports over in a format built to be filed exactly this way, because a provider whose paperwork feeds your logbook is cutting your next quote as well as writing this one.

What an LEV quote should itemise

An LEV quote you can compare and hold a provider to states:

• The systems and every hood. Each test point the price covers, so partial testing cannot hide in a system level line
• The benchmark position. Testing against commissioning data, or benchmark setting priced as its own named task
• The engineer’s competence. P601 qualified for the examination, stated on the quote, not asserted afterwards
• The report, included. Readings per test point, the benchmark judged against, a pass or fail per hood, remedial actions and the next test date
• Retest terms. The follow up attendance and per point retest cost, fixed before the first visit

The report format matters more in LEV than anywhere else on this site, because the law requires the records kept for five years and inspectors read them closely. Ask to see a sample report before you commit. A provider proud of theirs will send it within the hour.

What moves an LEV price up or down

The left column is a maintenance culture, not a negotiating position, and it is worth more than any discount a provider can offer.

The between test checks that keep the test cheap

The statutory test is annual territory, but control is continuous, and the sites whose tests come back clean are the ones running simple checks in between. The HSE expects routine user checks alongside the thorough examination, and they cost minutes.

• A weekly look at each hood: positioned at the work, undamaged, actually capturing
• Filter pressure readings or indicators logged, and filters changed when they say so
• Flex ducts checked for holes and crush damage, the most common failure we retest
• Airflow indicators, where fitted, glanced at daily by the people using the system
• Defects reported and fixed when small, before they become failed test points

A logbook of these checks does double duty: it keeps the system honest between tests, and it is evidence of the maintenance duty the same regulation imposes. Five minutes a week is the cheapest line in the whole LEV budget.

Getting a fixed LEV quote for your site

We quote LEV testing the way this page describes: per test point from your hood count and photos, benchmarks stated, P601 competence on the quote, the report defined, retest terms fixed in advance. Where the same site runs lifting equipment, machinery or pressure systems, the LOLER, PUWER and PSSR work joins the same visit plan.

Send the hood count and photos to info@seis.engineering or call 0330 043 8191 for a fixed, itemised quote. The related reading: