Protecting Welders When Fixed Extraction Isn’t Possible

Every welding arc now comes with a hard truth: the fume rising off the job is treated as carcinogenic, whether you’re working on stainless or mild steel. After IARC classified all welding fume as a Group 1 human carcinogen, HSE tightened its stance in 2019 and now treats every type of welding fume as a cancer risk. That shift has reset expectations for employers: suitable engineering controls, most notably local exhaust ventilation (LEV) – are now the default for indoor welding.

But not all work fits under a hood. On mobile sites, outdoors in the wind, or on large fabrications that simply won’t go near a captured bench, fixed LEV often isn’t practical or effective. In these real-world conditions, powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) step into the gap. Systems like the 3M Speedglas G5-01 Adflo PAPR, a high-efficiency PAPR helmet system, maintain COSHH compliance when engineering controls can’t.

HSE’s Position Leaves No Room for Ambiguity

The invisible threat made visible: Welding fume is now classified by the IARC as a Group 1 human carcinogen, carrying risks ranging from lung cancer to neurological damage

The message from HSE in February 2019 couldn’t have been clearer: “just crack a window” is no longer a control strategy.

General ventilation on its own is no longer acceptable for welding fume. For most indoor welding, inspectors now expect to see proper LEV in place. There is a narrow exception: for truly occasional, short-duration welding (less than an hour, less than once a week), good general ventilation plus suitable RPE may be acceptable where LEV is not reasonably practicable.

The reason for this hardening of stance is simple: the health toll is severe and well documented. IARC has confirmed that welding fumes cause lung cancer, with an estimated 152 UK welders dying each year from occupational exposure.

Beyond cancer, manganese in mild steel fume causes neurological damage resembling Parkinson’s disease, while hexavalent chromium triggers occupational asthma and respiratory sensitisation. HSE estimates that breathing metal fume at work sends 40–50 welders to hospital every year, and pneumococcal pneumonia kills about two welders annually.

COSHH Regulation 7 requires exposure to carcinogens be reduced to “as low as reasonably practicable”, meaning employers must exhaust higher-order controls: substitution, process changes and LEV, before relying on respiratory protective equipment.

When LEV Won’t Follow the Job

LEV is hard to beat in a fixed bay with extracted tables or on-torch capture. But most welding doesn’t happen in textbook conditions – it happens on steel that’s too big to move, out in the weather, or in places where you’re lucky to have power, let alone ducting.

HSE’s guidance accepts this reality. It notes that outdoors, LEV simply can’t reliably capture welding fume, and that on work at height or other temporary locations, fixed engineering controls may be impracticable. Fabricators and contractors know these scenarios well: heavy structural sections that won’t fit under a capture hood, maintenance welding in live plants with no permanent extraction, and site-based work like pipeline runs or ship repairs where the job moves constantly.

Where LEV can’t provide adequate control, HSE expects RPE with at least an APF of 20, and for welding tasks beyond roughly one hour per shift that usually means powered or supplied-air rather than disposables or half masks.

What the Adflo PAPR Delivers on Site

The 3M Speedglas G5-01 Helmet with Adflo isn’t just a mask – it’s a complete welding environment you wear on your back and head. Instead of fighting through a haze of fume and glare, you’re working inside a controlled stream of clean air with a clear view of the weld.

At the heart of the system is the belt-mounted Adflo blower, pushing 170–200 litres of filtered air per minute through a high-efficiency particulate filter that captures 99.97% of particles at 0.3 μm. In practice, that means metal fumes, oxides and the fine particulate cloud that hangs around during welding are pulled out of your breathing air before they reach your lungs.

Under EN 12941, the G5-01 with Adflo is certified to TH3, the highest protection class for loose-fitting powered filtering devices, with a nominal protection factor of 500. Because it’s a positive-pressure system, clean air constantly flows out of the helmet, helping to keep contaminated air from being drawn into the breathing zone even if the seal isn’t perfect.

Power has caught up with protection too. The heavy-duty lithium-ion battery provides up to 12 hours of use on a single charge, with rapid charging to around 80% in about an hour, when using the 3M Adflo Charger. For supervisors and welders alike, that removes the old anxiety of “will my protection last as long as the job?”

The G5-01VC Variable Colour filter is built to help you see more than just a bright blob. In the dark state, welders can choose between natural, cool or warm colour tones to suit the process and material, making it easier to read the puddle and follow the joint. The auto-darkening filter covers shades 8–14 and switches in around 0.1 milliseconds, fast enough for high-amp work while still handling low-amp TIG down to about 1 amp.

The G5-01 flip-up visor allows for seamless switching between welding and grinding without breaking the clean-air seal.

Comfort and usability are baked into the design. The flip-up visor lets you quickly switch between grinding, fitting and welding, and when it’s up, the effective weight on your head is reduced by about 36%. Inside the helmet, adjustable airflow ducting lets you aim the cooling air where you actually want it: to your face, to the visor, or a mix of both, helping to cut down on dry eyes, dry nose and the fatigue that comes with poorly directed airflow in some other powered systems.

Why LEV and RPE Work Together

HSE is very clear: LEV and RPE are meant to work together, not compete. Even with good extraction, if you can still see residual fume or smell ozone during TIG welding, you haven’t achieved adequate control and respiratory protection must step in.

This matters especially on big, awkward workpieces. When you’re running long welds on large sections, capture hoods rarely maintain perfect positioning throughout the job, resulting in patchy fume capture and pockets of exposure. HSE guidance is explicit: in these scenarios, suitable RPE must supplement LEV. That’s where powered air systems come into their own – even in well-equipped workshops, acting as a second line of defence when engineering controls can’t capture 100% of the fume.

There’s also a strong compliance advantage to loose-fitting powered respirators. Tight-fitting masks depend on a good facial seal and legally require individual face-fit testing, ongoing competence, and meticulous record-keeping. Loose-fitting PAPR hoods and helmets use positive pressure rather than a tight seal, making them suitable for workers with beards or other facial hair while avoiding the face-fit testing burden entirely. For many employers, that combination of robust protection, simpler administration and workforce inclusivity makes PAPR the natural centre of their welding fume strategy.

What Inspectors Look For

When HSE turns up on site, they’re following the paper trail. Inspectors will want to see LEV thorough examination and test certificates within the 14 month maximum interval, maintenance logbooks, risk assessments updated to reflect the 2019 welding fume reclassification, and RPE programme documentation covering selection, maintenance and training.

Recent enforcement shows this isn’t box-ticking. In November 2023, W.S. Barrett & Son Limited was fined £10,000 after failing to maintain effective LEV despite previous improvement notices.

Where you can’t realistically install LEV, the focus shifts to proving robust alternative controls are in place: selecting RPE with appropriate protection factors, maintaining it in good working order with documented checks, and ensuring welders understand both the risks and proper use of their equipment.

Health surveillance is part of the long game when welding stainless steel or other materials containing respiratory sensitisers such as chromium (VI) or nickel. That means baseline spirometry, regular occupational health reviews and health records kept for at least 40 years.

For H&S managers, it’s a reminder that welding fume control isn’t just about passing today’s inspection but demonstrating a structured, long-term approach to protecting lung health.

Protection That Follows the Work

For fabrication teams working across multiple sites, maintenance contractors chasing breakdowns, and construction firms tackling structural steel, the welding goes where the steel is – not where the extraction is. Fixed LEV simply can’t follow every job, and in outdoor, temporary or site-based conditions, it often can’t do the job at all.

That’s where the regulatory reality meets practical engineering.

The 3M Speedglas G5-01VC Adflo system provides a standards-compliant answer when LEV isn’t an option or isn’t enough on its own.

Check it out here

Used as part of a properly documented COSHH control regime, it delivers the protection factor HSE expects (TH3 with NPF 500), the battery life to match a full shift, and the comfort that keeps welders actually wearing it all day.

In the post-2019 enforcement landscape, where inspectors expect to see both engineering controls pushed as far as reasonably practicable and robust RPE where they can’t reach, having a defensible respiratory protection strategy isn’t optional anymore.

For mobile operations, a quality PAPR system isn’t just good practice – it’s increasingly the only way to tick all the boxes and keep your team’s lungs out of harm’s way.