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LEV testing - the law
There is no law called the LEV Act - which is exactly why people get caught out. The duty to test your extraction is real, it is enforceable, and it sits inside COSHH. Here is precisely where, who it binds, and what happens if you ignore it.
The short answer
If your workplace relies on local exhaust ventilation to control a hazardous substance, testing it is a legal requirement under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH). Regulation 9 makes you keep that LEV in efficient working order and have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every 14 months. It is not optional, and the duty falls on the employer.
Where the law actually is
The reason so many operators are unsure whether LEV testing is a legal requirement is that there is no single statute that mentions LEV in its name. The obligation is woven into the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. COSHH Regulation 7 requires you to prevent or adequately control exposure to hazardous substances. The moment you meet that duty by installing extraction, the LEV becomes an engineering control - and Regulation 9 then requires you to keep it in efficient working order and good repair.
In practice, Regulation 9 is the one that bites. It says engineering controls must be maintained, and that LEV specifically must be subject to a thorough examination and test at suitable intervals - and at least once every 14 months for most processes. So the law does not ask whether you would like to test your extraction. Once you rely on it to protect people, testing it is a legal condition of using it.
Who it binds
COSHH applies wherever a work process gives off dust, mist, fume, vapour, gas or bioaerosol that could harm health, and where LEV is the control. That is a much wider net than people assume. It is not only heavy industry - it reaches into trades and premises of every size.
Welding and fabrication shops capturing weld fume, which the HSE now treats as a carcinogen even for mild steel. Joinery and woodworking capturing wood dust. Bakeries capturing flour dust. Vehicle bodyshops and spray booths controlling isocyanate paint mist. Foundries, engineering shops on oil mist, pharmaceutical and laboratory fume cupboards, dental and nail-bar extraction, food and chemical processing. If any of that describes your site, the LEV serving it is caught by Regulation 9.
What compliant looks like
Being legally compliant is not just having some ductwork on the wall. It means the LEV has had a thorough examination and test - a TExT - carried out to the HSE guidance HSG258, at least every 14 months. That test is a structured, three-stage assessment: a visual examination of the system's condition, measurement of its technical performance such as face velocity and capture at each hood, and a judgement on whether it is actually controlling exposure.
It also means keeping the paperwork. COSHH requires the report of each thorough examination and test, and the record of any repairs, to be retained for at least five years. For some higher-risk processes named in COSHH Schedule 4, the statutory testing interval is shorter than 14 months. The 14 months is the outer limit for the general case, not a target to drift towards.
A duty you cannot delegate
A common and costly misunderstanding is that booking an LEV company discharges the duty. It does not. You can outsource the testing work, but you cannot outsource the Regulation 9 duty. The employer remains the duty holder: for acting on the recommendations in the report, closing out defects the test finds, retaining the records, and answering to an inspector.
So a test that comes back with remedial actions is not the end of the job - it is the start of one. If the report says a hood is under-performing and you file it without fixing it, you are arguably in a worse position than before, because you now hold written evidence that you knew. Compliance is the whole loop: test, act, record, repeat.
What happens if you do not
Failing to test and maintain LEV is a breach of COSHH, and the HSE has a ladder of enforcement for it. Where an inspector finds a contravention likely to continue, they can serve an improvement notice requiring you to put it right within a set period. Where there is a risk of serious personal injury, a prohibition notice can stop the process immediately. Ignoring a notice is itself a separate offence.
If the HSE identifies a material breach, it can also charge you for its time under the Fee for Intervention scheme - you pay for the inspector to find and help fix your problem. Serious or repeated failures can be prosecuted, carrying unlimited fines, and in the gravest cases custodial sentences. Directors can be pursued personally. Set against the modest cost of a scheduled test, the enforcement exposure is the expensive side of the ledger.
A test is not a service
It is worth being clear about what the law asks for, because two things often get muddled. Servicing your extraction - changing filters, checking the fan, keeping it running - is maintenance. It is necessary, and Regulation 9 expects it, but it is not the statutory thorough examination and test. A quick airflow reading taken by a maintenance contractor is not one either.
A thorough examination and test is a formal, competent assessment against the system's design intent, structured to HSG258, that measures whether exposure is actually being controlled and produces a report you can stand behind. If someone offers to tick your LEV off with a two-minute look at a gauge, that is not what Regulation 9 requires, and it will not satisfy an inspector. The distinction matters because a false sense of compliance is worse than knowing you are due.
The exemption question
Operators sometimes hope their situation is exempt - the system is new, the extraction is small, it is only used occasionally. None of those is a get-out. A newly installed system needs commissioning to establish its benchmark performance, and then falls straight onto the examination cycle. Portable and on-tool extraction used to control a hazardous substance is caught just as fixed ductwork is. Light or occasional use does not remove the duty; it only affects the risk assessment.
The only real question is whether the LEV is there to control a substance hazardous to health. If it is, Regulation 9 applies and there is no threshold of size or frequency that lets you off. If genuinely it is not - a comfort-cooling or general-ventilation system that controls nothing hazardous - then it is not LEV in the COSHH sense at all, and a competent survey will tell you which category yours falls into.
Getting compliant
For all the weight of the law behind it, becoming compliant is simple. A competent examiner surveys your extraction, carries out the thorough examination and test to HSG258, and gives you a report that states, with figures, whether each part is controlling exposure - plus any remedial actions and a clear next-due date.
From there you are on a cycle: fix what the report flags, keep the records for the required period, and re-test before the interval runs out. Once that rhythm is in place, the legal question answers itself every year - you have the evidence in hand before an inspector ever asks for it. If you are not sure when your system was last examined, that uncertainty is itself the prompt to book one, because an overdue test is one of the most common findings an inspector records.
Questions
Yes. Under COSHH Regulation 9, if you rely on local exhaust ventilation to control a hazardous substance you must keep it in efficient working order and have it thoroughly examined and tested at least every 14 months. It is a legal duty, not best practice.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. Regulation 7 requires you to control exposure; Regulation 9 requires you to maintain, examine and test the engineering controls - including LEV - that achieve it.
Yes. COSHH applies by the hazard, not the size of the business. A single welding bay, joinery bench, bakery or nail bar with extraction is caught just as a large factory is.
You have met the testing task, but not transferred the duty. The employer remains responsible for acting on the report, fixing defects, and keeping the records for at least five years.
Serve an improvement or prohibition notice, charge for its time under Fee for Intervention, and in serious or repeated cases prosecute - with unlimited fines and possible personal liability for directors.
Have a thorough examination and test carried out to HSG258, act on any remedial actions, keep the report on file, and re-test before the 14-month interval expires.
We will examine and test your extraction to COSHH and HSG258, and give you the report and cycle that keep you on the right side of Regulation 9.
