Envirochem were recently approached by an individual client who requested a Lead in paint survey be carried out on a property they wanted to purchase.

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Envirochem were recently approached by an individual client who requested a Lead in paint survey be carried out on a property they wanted to purchase.

An individual client used Envirochems website to contact us and to request a Lead in paint survey on a property they wanted to purchase in Reigate. The client had a Home-buyers Report carried out on the property they wanted to purchase and it was highlighted that due to the age of the property, Lead paint may have been used in the decoration of the building. With concerns of the Lead content in paint and with a young child, the client wanted the paint from various areas of the building checked before remediation works are carried out within the property. With the aid of the client, sampling areas were agreed and scrapings from various surfaces were taken of the paint, labelled and bagged and taken back to the laboratory from analysis. Paint sampled are digested in Aqua Regia using microwave digestion and subsequently analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrophotometry (ICP-OES) using our UKAS accredited procedure (please note, Envirochem are only accredited for the analysis of Lead in paint and not the sampling of lead in paint). A report was subsequently produced to report the results.

Envirochem can carry out a variety of paint analysis for individual home buyers and other clients. If you require any of our chemical analysis services, occupational hygiene services, asbestos or microbiological services, please contact us on 01329-287777, or fill out the form below;

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Envirochem tests for a number of anions, including fluoride.

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Envirochem tests for a number of anions, including fluoride. Fluoride is naturally present in a large range of plant material and water and needs to be below a certain level to conform to the waste acceptance criteria. It needs to be less than 1.5 mg/l in potable water, less than 5 in effluent water and less than 10mg/kg in soil leachate. We also test for Chloride, Nitrite, Nitrate, Bromide, Phosphate and Sulphate.

 

Please feel free to contact us for all our services

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Water Analysis – Effluent water suite

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The most commonly requested suite of water analysis is our effluent water suite. This includes suspended solids, ammonia and biological oxygen demand (BOD) and is often carried out on the inlet and outlet sections of water treatment systems to check the efficiency of the process.

In addition to tests required to satisfy Environment Agency (EA) guidelines, we can also accommodate testing requests to meet extra guidelines set by individual local authorities, such as testing for pH, metals, anions and organics. We can also look at the particle size of the suspended solid to determine the correct size of filter needed to remove it from the water.

If you wish to contact us about this service or any of our other services please see below;

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Occupational hygiene monitoring during lead roof removal works

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Envirochem were approached by a new client who required occupational hygiene monitoring during lead roof removal works at a historic building in Winchester.

The client was carrying out roof remediation works on a building in the historic town of Winchester. The process involved removing the old lead roofing used many years ago and replacing to improve the quality and look of the roof. During this work, employees are potentially exposed to lead fragments and dust through breathing and skin contact which can have health effects. Envirochem monitored the activity by placing static and personal inhalable dust monitors in locations where the lead removal activities are taking place to discover the general inhalable dust levels in the atmosphere and then later digested the filter and analysed the digestate on the inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrophotometer to discover the lead content of the dust. These results can be used to inform the health and safety department of dust levels in the atmosphere and whether further measures are needed to be put in place to suppress dust and protect employees with specific personal protective equipment (PPE).

Envirochem carry out a wide range of occupational hygiene, chemical, microbiological and asbestos services during all types of construction activities and in other scenarios. Please contact us if you have any questions on this;

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Overseas Testing

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Overseas’ testing

Do you think your site is too far away for our operatives to help you with your monitoring needs?

Well we have clients based throughout England as north as Leeds and as southern as the Isle of Wight. That does not include our client’s based in Wales and those we have flown to in Guernsey. There is nowhere we cannot come to sample!

The cost of our site visits are based on your business’s locality to our Fareham based office, which includes travel costs i.e. flights or ferry tickets, operative costs and any overnight accommodation that could be required (depending specifically on the job). This is an additional fee which is on top of the analysis that is carried out whilst on site.

If you require any occupational monitoring at your premise or to be advised on our other services we could provide to suit your individual business needs, please fill out the form below;

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Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD)

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Envirochem offers a large range of colourmetric testing. Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is a good initial indicator of how hazardous a liquid sample is.  COD is the total measurement of all chemicals in the water that can be oxidised. It is similar to Biological Oxygen demand because it provides an index to assess the effect of discharged waste water on the environment. It is sometimes used instead of BOD because of its shorter test time.

 

If you require this service or for information on any of our other services please fill out the form below

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Envirochem offers a large range of colourmetric testing.

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Envirochem offers a large range of colourmetric testing. Ammonia is tested for, largely because, waste water must fall under a certain limit, for it to be disposed of safely into the environment. The majority of our samples for Ammonia come from water treatment plants, from companies testing their water discharge and from care homes that have their own water treatment facilities.

 

For more information on this service and all our other service please fill out the form below.

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Death of Killer Whale due to extremely high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

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The Killer Whale, called Lulu, was found dead on the Isle of Tiree in Scotland last year after becoming entangled in fishing lines, this was originally thought to be the cause of death. However, tests have now discovered that the Whale had one of the highest levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, ever recorded. They are now fears for the rest of the Pod, who are have similarly high levels of PCB contamination.

The chemicals are still in the environment even though they were banned in the 1970’s. This is because, the manmade chemicals are extremely stable, resistant to extreme temperatures and pressures, and have insulating properties. Due to their properties, they were used in everything from plastics to paints and electrical equipment.

Although, the chemicals were banned in the 1970’s they are still prevalent in the environment, as the chemicals take a long time to break down, High levels in particular can be found in landfill sites where they can leach into waterways and on into the sea.

For more on this story please click here.

If you require PCB testing for waste acceptance or for any of our other services please fill out the form below;

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Occupational hygiene Services – Water or soil sampling site visits

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Water or soil sampling site visits

Our occupational hygiene team not only carry out site visits for air quality monitoring, they are also available to come to sites and sample both soil and water for analysis. The operative will come to site with all the necessary sampling equipment and can take basic water samples for analysis such as suspended solids, pH and metals, or bacterial water samples for analysis such as Ecoli, legonella and biological oxygen demand. For soil sampling this could be for potential asbestos samples or for WAC certification.

For our site visit charge the cost will be based on the locality from our office in Fareham, which will be an additional fee on top of the analysis. But this takes away any courier costs or worry of the sample/s not being taken adequately for the analysis intended and also to ensure they meet our UKAS certification guidelines (for our certificated procedures only).

If you would like to book in either a one off visit, or to set up routine visits to your site for sampling, please see the form below, Or if you are unsure of the analysis you require, we can also provide expert advice to suit the needs of your business or site.

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Agilent 7890 GC-MS (gas chromatograph mass spectrometer).

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Envirochem are pleased to announce the purchase of a brand new Agilent 7890 GC-MS (gas chromatograph mass spectrometer). The new machine will allow us to analyse TPHs (total petroleum hydrocarbons) and PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons) simultaneously, thus improving the efficiency of our methods and ensuring that we maintain the very highest standard of customer service. The new GC-MS will also offer greater sensitivity for our PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) method and the new compound library will be a vital reference tool to help us identify more organic compounds than ever before.

 

For more on these services –

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