Partner with an independent inspection body to cover your clients’ statutory obligations. One point of contact across all four regimes, with verified written reports and nationwide, multi-site cover for every plant type.
Independent advice on compliance, written schemes of examination and inspection strategy, from competent engineer surveyors with no equipment to sell you.
Plain answers from independent engineer surveyors who write these reports every week.
A TExT report is a comparison document: what your extraction measured on the day against what it achieved at commissioning. This guide explains the three stages behind it, the numbers worth reading, the adequacy judgement, the prioritised remedial list and the labels that end up on your hoods.
Visual, measured performance, then control effectiveness
The benchmark
Every reading is judged against commissioning data
5 years
The minimum retention for each TExT report
On the hood
Test record labels live at the hood, not in the file
Reading your report
Find the adequacy judgement per system, it is the report's verdict
Read measured values beside the commissioning benchmarks, not alone
Work the remedial list in its printed priority order
Check each hood's test label matches what the report says about it
Findings and what they mean
The three stages and where each lands in the report
HSG258 structures a thorough examination and test in three stages, and a good report keeps them visible. Stage one is the thorough visual: hoods, ducting, filter housings, fans, discharge points, airflow indicators and labels, checked for damage, blockage, corrosion and any modification since commissioning, because the system being tested must be the system that was designed.
Stage two is the measured performance: face and capture velocities at the hoods, transport velocities in the ducting, static pressures across hoods and filters, volume flows and fan checks, each recorded beside its benchmark. Stage three is the judgement those numbers feed: whether the system still controls exposure adequately for the process and substance it serves. The report ends where your work begins, with the adequacy verdict per system, the prioritised remedial list, and the next test date.
Finding
Severity
What you must do
Who is told
Visual examination findings
Stage 1
Fix physical damage and reverse unauthorised modifications
Report body and photos of test points
Measured values against benchmarks
Stage 2
Investigate any reading adrift of commissioning data
The measurement tables
Adequacy of control judgement
Stage 3
Stop any process the report says is no longer controlled
The verdict per system
Prioritised remedial list and next date
Output
Action in printed order, evidence closure, diary the date
The action plan and the hood labels
If the examiner had no commissioning data to compare against, the report should say so and explain how adequacy was judged instead. That caveat is a prompt to recover or recreate the system's intended performance data before the next test.
Getting back to work
After the report: labels, closure and the file
The TExT report opens a remediation cycle rather than closing a test. Two disciplines make that real.
Labels are the report's public face
HSE guidance recommends a test record label at each hood, or beside the on switch, where operators and supervisors can read it, and a red Failed label on any hood or system that failed, paired with a short emergency written report listing what is wrong and the practical remedial actions. The label comes off only when a competent person confirms control is restored after the repair.
Walk the system after every test and check the labels against the report. A hood labelled passed that the report lists as failed, or the reverse, is a communication failure that puts operators on the wrong side of the finding.
Closure evidence and the five year file
Each TExT report must be kept for at least five years, and the commissioning data for the life of the system. The file that survives scrutiny holds more than the reports: the remedial list with each item dated and signed off, the retest that cleared any failure, and the logbook of user checks running between tests.
Read the reports as a series, too. Velocities drifting down test after test are the system ageing in plain sight, and catching the trend is cheaper than catching the failure it is heading toward.
Part 1 of 10
The numbers on the page, and the bands they live in
A TExT report is full of velocities and pressures, and they only mean something against two references: the commissioning benchmark for your system, and the design bands HSG258 works to. The commissioning figure always wins, because it is what your system was proven to achieve when it controlled exposure adequately. The bands below are the context an examiner carries in their head.
Capture velocity is judged against the design band for the process, from 0.25 m/s for a still air release up to 10 m/s for high energy dust.
Capture and face velocities at the hood are where control is won or lost. For contaminants released gently into still air, design capture velocities typically sit around 0.25 to 0.5 metres per second. Active release into moderately still air pushes the band to roughly 0.5 to 1.0. Energetic generation, such as grinding or spraying in a draughty space, needs 1.0 to 2.5, and high energy release such as blasting can demand anything up to 10. A report showing a hood measured at 0.3 metres per second is healthy for a solvent tank lip extract and hopeless for a grinding wheel, which is why the number never travels without the process.
Transport velocities in the ducting keep what was captured moving. Gases and vapours need only enough to keep the air moving, typically around 5 to 10 metres per second, while dusts must be kept airborne: fine, light dusts commonly design around 10 to 15, and average industrial dusts around 15 to 20, with heavier or damp materials above that. A duct velocity that has sagged below its band is quietly filling itself with settled material, and the static pressure readings across hoods and filters are how the examiner sees resistance building before anything visibly fails. Rising pressure drop across a filter between tests is a loading trend; a falling hood static suggests leaks or a fan losing performance.
Key pointEvery velocity on the report is a comparison against the commissioning benchmark for that hood, not against a universal pass mark.
Part 2 of 10
Schedule 4: the processes where 14 months is not the law
The 14 month maximum interval everyone quotes comes from COSHH Regulation 9, and Schedule 4 of the same regulations overrides it for a short list of named processes. If any of these run in your workplace, the TExT interval on your report should already reflect it.
Blasting carried out in or incidental to the cleaning of metal castings in connection with their manufacture: thorough examination and test at least every month
Jute cloth manufacture: at least every month
Processes, other than wet processes, in which metal articles other than gold, platinum or iridium are ground, abraded or polished using mechanical power, in any room for more than 12 hours in any week: at least every 6 months
Processes giving off dust or fume in which non ferrous metal castings are produced: at least every 6 months
The trap is not the list itself, it is estates that default every system to 14 months and then change their work. A fabrication shop that takes on dry grinding across a full week has walked into the 6 month tier, and the review belongs before the first job, not at the next renewal. Even outside Schedule 4, 14 months is a ceiling rather than a target: high toxicity substances, heavy filter loading, multi shift running and a declining trend across previous reports are all reasons a competent examiner will recommend a shorter cycle, and that recommendation belongs in your test planning, not just the file.
Key pointFor a handful of Schedule 4 processes the statutory interval is 1 or 6 months, not 14; check the schedule before you diarise anything.
Worked example
Worked example: a woodworking shop report, read end to end
A joinery runs a four hood system: a wall saw, a spindle moulder, a sander and a bagging point, sharing one fan and filter set. The TExT report arrives and reads like this.
One hood holding its capture zone while a failed hood lets the contaminant stream escape past the operator.
The visual stage records the ducting sound, the filter housing seals intact, but flexible duct to the sander abraded through at one bend and repaired with tape by persons unknown. That repair is a finding in itself, because an unauthorised modification means the system tested is not quite the system commissioned. The measured stage puts three hoods within a few per cent of their commissioning figures, and the sander hood at 9.2 metres per second face velocity against a commissioning benchmark of 15, a shortfall no tape repair explains alone: the abraded bend has been leaking and the branch balance has drifted.
The judgement stage follows the logic to its end: three hoods adequately controlling, the sander hood failed, wood dust being a substance where inadequate control is never tolerable. The examiner applies a red Failed label at the sander, issues the short written report of what is wrong, and the report's remedial list opens with replace the flexible duct and rebalance the branch, retest before returning the sander to dusty work. Sanding stops, the other three hoods keep working, the repair happens inside a week, and the retest restores the benchmark figure. The file now holds the report, the failure note, the invoice, and the retest: a complete story any inspector can follow in two minutes.
Key pointA single failed hood fails the duty for the people it protects, whatever the rest of the system scores.
Part 4 of 10
Between tests: the logbook that keeps the report honest
The TExT proves control on one day in 14 months. COSHH expects the system maintained in efficient working order the whole time, and HSG258 builds that around user checks recorded in a logbook. A defensible logbook regime looks like this: operators glance at the airflow indicator or manometer at each use and know what the acceptable range is, someone named checks each hood visually on a weekly cycle, filters and cleaning follow the manufacturer's schedule, and every fault found, repair done and part changed lands in the log with a date.
The logbook carries the weekly user checks that keep a system honest between one TExT and the next.
The logbook matters for two audiences. Your examiner reads it before testing, because a log full of filter changes and duct repairs tells them where to look. An HSE inspector often asks for the logbook before they look at the plant at all, because a live, scribbled in, coffee stained log is evidence of a system being managed, and a pristine binder printed last week is evidence of the opposite. If your report's remedial list keeps finding the same faults test after test, the log is where the between test discipline is failing.
Key pointThe TExT proves one day in 14 months; the logbook proves the other 425, and examiners and inspectors both read it that way.
Part 5 of 10
Why systems fail their TExT: the patterns behind the remedial lists
Most failed tests trace to a handful of root causes, and knowing them turns your report's remedial list from a repair bill into a diagnosis.
Saturated or wrong specification filters, including dust classes that never matched the hazard, driving pressure drop up and flows down
Flexible ducting holed, crushed or taped, especially at bends and connections to moveable hoods
Hoods moved, modified or positioned away from the process, so capture distance has doubled since commissioning
Extra branches added to the system without rebalancing, robbing every original hood of flow
Dampers closed, jammed or adjusted by operators chasing noise or draughts
Fan problems: slipping belts, reversed rotation after electrical work, worn impellers
Settled material in ducts where transport velocity sagged below its band
Missing commissioning data, so nobody can say what good looks like any more
That last one deserves its own line in your planning. A system with no commissioning report can still be tested, and the report should say plainly how adequacy was judged in its absence, but the honest fix is to commission a proper baseline, typically P604 level work rather than routine P601 testing, so every future report has its reference back.
Key pointMost failures are drift, not disaster: blocked filters, added machines, opened dampers and worn hoods that nobody logged.
Part 6 of 10
Retention and the paperwork map
The record keeping is simple to state and constantly failed in practice. Every TExT report is kept for at least 5 years. The commissioning data is kept for the life of the system, because it is the benchmark every future test measures against. The logbook of user checks and maintenance runs continuously between tests and stays available. And the remedial list from each report closes with dated evidence: the invoice, the retest, the sign off.
Competence sits behind all of it. Routine TExT work is the territory of examiners holding BOHS P601 or equivalent, commissioning and system appraisal sits at P604 level, and the employer's duty is not discharged by hiring either: the Regulation 9 duty to have the examination done, and the record keeping, stay with you. When the paperwork map above can be produced in one folder per system, an inspection visit is a short one.
Key pointKeep five years of TExT reports and the commissioning data for the life of the system; P601 and the logbook complete the set an inspector asks for.
Part 7 of 10
Reading the adequacy judgement like the examiner wrote it
The verdict line in a TExT report is a chain of reasoning compressed into a sentence, and unpacking it tells you how much confidence to place in it. Adequate control under COSHH means exposure controlled to the standard the risk assessment and workplace exposure limits demand, so the examiner's judgement runs: this substance, this process, this hood geometry, these measured velocities, therefore capture is or is not maintained. A good report shows its working: the substance and process named per hood, the benchmark beside each reading, and where the judgement leant on smoke tests or dust lamp observation as well as the anemometer, it says so.
Two phrasings deserve a harder look. A system judged adequate subject to the remedial actions is a conditional pass, and the conditions are load bearing: leave them unactioned and the basis of the pass erodes. And a judgement qualified by absence of commissioning data is honest but weak, because it is measuring against generic bands rather than your system's proven performance. Neither phrase is a defect in the examiner; both are instructions to the duty holder about what the pass is actually standing on.
Key pointThe examiner judges adequacy for the process as found on the day, so a pass stops being a pass the day you change the process.
Part 8 of 10
On tool extraction and small systems: the same report in miniature
The rise of on tool extraction, dust extractors paired with sanders, grinders, drills and saws, has not created a lighter legal regime, it has multiplied the number of small LEV systems on site. Each pairing of tool, hose and extraction unit that controls exposure to a hazardous substance is LEV, it needs its TExT on the same statutory cycle, and the report reads the same way: the unit identified, the tested combination named, airflow measured against the manufacturer's specification or commissioning figure, filter state assessed, and a verdict per unit.
The portable fleet adds two disciplines the fixed system never needed. Combinations matter: the report vouches for the pairings it measured, so a high demand grinder run on the small extractor that tested fine with a palm sander is outside the tested envelope. And identity matters more, not less: units that move between vans and sites go missing from test schedules precisely because nobody owns them, so number every unit, keep the register with the fixed systems, and let the report's identity entries do for the fleet what serials do for the fixed plant. An M class extractor with a current test label at the tool is the smallest complete LEV compliance story there is.
Key pointOn tool extraction is LEV in law: the same 14 month TExT, the same report, just a smaller system.
Part 9 of 10
Commissioning: the benchmark the whole regime stands on
Every comparison in this guide runs back to one document: the commissioning report that recorded what the system achieved when it was proven to control exposure. HSG258 expects every new system to be commissioned, the data kept for the life of the system, and every subsequent TExT to measure against it. Commissioning is also where the design assumptions are tested against reality: hood by hood airflows, duct velocities, filter pressure drops and fan performance, recorded with the system running the actual process it was built to control.
If your estate has systems with no commissioning data, treat recreating the baseline as a project with a deadline rather than a permanent caveat. The work is an appraisal of what the system needs to achieve for the process it serves, followed by measurement and adjustment until it demonstrably does, typically P604 territory rather than routine testing. It pays back twice: every future TExT becomes a true comparison, and the appraisal itself frequently finds the added hoods, closed dampers and quiet modifications that explain years of marginal results.
Key pointWithout commissioning data every later test is a comparison against nothing; recovering or reconstructing the benchmark is the first fix, not an optional one.
Part 10 of 10
When the report meets the risk assessment
A TExT report never floats free of the COSHH risk assessment that put the LEV there, and the two documents discipline each other. The risk assessment names the substance, the exposure route and the standard control has to meet, which is what the examiner's adequacy judgement is measured against; the report, in turn, is evidence the control measure in the assessment actually works. When either changes, the other needs reading again: a new substance through an old hood is a risk assessment change that can invalidate the report's judgement, and a failed report is a live entry in the risk assessment until control is restored.
Three moments should force the pair onto the same desk. A process change, new materials, new throughput, a moved workstation, means the assessment is revisited and the examiner told, because the next test must judge the system against the work it now does. A failed test means the assessment's interim measures take over, respiratory protection, stopping the process, whatever the assessment says happens when engineering control is lost, and those measures should already be written down rather than improvised at the red label. And an exposure event or health surveillance finding runs the logic in reverse: if someone is being exposed despite an in date pass, either the test did not represent the real work or the work has drifted from what was tested, and both answers start with the report and the assessment side by side. Estates that staple the two reviews together find that neither document goes stale, which is the whole compliance system doing what it was designed to do.
Key pointThe COSHH assessment decides what control is adequate; the TExT report only proves the hardware delivers it, and neither document can stand in for the other.
What exactly is a TExT and how is it different from an LEV service?
The thorough examination and test is the statutory check under COSHH Regulation 9 that your extraction still controls exposure as intended, carried out by a competent person to the HSG258 method. A service maintains the plant; the TExT measures and judges it. One cannot substitute for the other, and the report only comes from the TExT.
Which numbers in the report actually matter?
The ones sitting next to a benchmark. Face and capture velocities at each hood, transport velocities in ducting and static pressures across filters mean little in isolation and everything against the commissioning figures. A reading inside benchmark is health; a reading adrift is the defect list forming.
What if we have no commissioning data for the examiner to compare against?
The test can still be done, and the report should state the limitation and how adequacy was judged, typically against HSG258 guidance values for the process. Treat that as temporary: have the intended performance data recreated, because every future test inherits the gap until you do.
Is the report a pass or fail document?
Per system, effectively yes: the examiner judges whether each system adequately controls exposure, and HSE guidance recommends a red Failed label on anything that does not, with a short written report of what is wrong. Between those poles sits the remedial list, where items degrade performance without yet defeating control. See HSE's LEV guidance.
Who is allowed to sign the report?
A competent examiner: in practice someone with recognised training such as BOHS P601 and experience on your system type, working to the HSG258 method. Competence is knowledge, skill and application experience together, and an examiner who cannot discuss HSG258 fluently is the wrong examiner.
How long do we keep TExT reports and what else belongs in the file?
Five years minimum for each report, and the commissioning data for the life of the system. The defensible file adds the dated closure of every remedial item, the retest after any failure, and the user check logbook, so the whole control story reads in one place. Our COSHH and LEV guide covers the record duties in full.
The report lists remedial actions but the system passed. Do they still matter?
They are the difference between this pass and the next result. Remedial items are measured drift that has not yet defeated control, listed in priority order precisely so you can act before it does. An unactioned list reappearing test after test reads as neglect to any inspector who compares reports.
Do on tool extraction systems get the same report?
The same logic on a smaller frame: the pairing of tool, hose and extraction unit is tested against its intended performance, and the report judges whether the combination still controls exposure. Keep the tested pairings together in use, because the report only vouches for the combinations it measured.
Talk it through with an independent engineer surveyor today
Partner with an independent inspection body to cover your clients’ statutory obligations. One point of contact across all four regimes, with verified written reports and nationwide, multi-site cover for every plant type.
Independent advice on compliance, written schemes of examination and inspection strategy, from competent engineer surveyors with no equipment to sell you.
