Posted By Richard_C Can anyone advise what are reasonable costs to get an outside specialist to conduct a noise assessment within a woodwork shop that is used to teach school leavers on apprenticeship schemes. Those teaching are exposed to the noise every day and the workshop contains six fixed machines plus the dust extraction system. Thanks

Posted By The toecap WE WERE CHARGED £600 for about half a day. They only did a small wood working shop with about 6 machines. I can only advise people to do the course and get the money. I think the course is about £1500

Posted By Salus Richard, I would advise that you obtain a copy of L108 Controlling Noise at Work, before committing to an expensive noise survey. You may be able to DIY Guidance states, para 43, you are not required to make a highly precise or definite assessment of individual employees noise exposure, such as would be obtained by making detailed measurements. Your assessment of exposure must be a reliable "estimate" with suffecient precision for you to be able to show whether exposure action values are like to be exceeded. You would be expected to use data from measurements of noise where "other"(manafacturers)sources cannot give you reliable and representetive data. You can get hold of noise levels for your equipment from the manafacturer, assess the risks, "estimate" like exposure, put in controls,(either damp sound down from plant or last resort PPE, the most sensible option as you need to be able to operate your equipment)issue PPE then record what you will do to control noise exposure. protect your employees by controlling noise risk, issue PPE, give employees info and training for noise (get info from HSE and DIY)and PPE use, carry out very simple health surveillance (para 313)then maintain all equipment and ensure your procedures are being adherred to by monitoring of employees and equipment. You are in an environment that is static, the only changes to exposure will be the amount of time employees spend using a particular machine. Write down a list of the machines you have and get each employee to note the number of minutes spent at each machine for a week. You can then "estimate" exposure levels and make an action plan from there. (this is my interpretation of the regs, not everyones, so others provide info for Richard question, not on my comments)

Posted By Is Kismet Two days on site would mean another day at least to write up - so three days (disregarding travel time). Cost of equipment and annual calibration to take into account, and upgrading of skills by attending a refresher course perhaps every 3/4 years. £600 a day to cover all that, would be £1800 plus expenses and reasonable for a small H&S consultancy to attend. Perhaps double for a company with large overheads. Interesting about the reference. In 10 years running a consultancy we have only ever been asked once for one.

Posted By Richard_C Dear All, Thanks for the information, the wide variety of it and in your opinions