Fume cupboards for schools: a practical guide

A school laboratory is a particular kind of environment. It is busy, it is used by people who are still learning, budgets are tight, and space is often at a premium. A fume cupboard for a school has to fit all of that, while doing the serious job of protecting students and staff from the fumes of practical chemistry.

If you look after school science facilities, here is a practical look at what matters.

Education settings have their own well-established guidance for fume cupboards. In the UK the key reference is CLEAPSS guidance G9, which sets out what a school fume cupboard should do and how it should be checked. It sits alongside the general duty to control hazardous substances that applies to any workplace.

We design our educational equipment to work towards CLEAPSS G9 guidance, and school fume cupboards are checked against it in service. When you are choosing or maintaining a unit for a school, it is worth making sure it suits a school context and that your testing follows the relevant advice. A supplier who works with schools will be familiar with all of this and can help you get it right.

Many schools favour ductless, recirculating cupboards, and for good reasons. They do not need ductwork routed through the building, which is often impractical in an older school. They can be moved between rooms as timetables and needs change. And because they recirculate, they do not pull heated air out of the room, which helps with running costs.

The trade-off, as always with ductless, is that the filter must suit the chemistry and needs replacing over time. For the range of substances used in typical school practicals, this is usually very manageable. For anything unusual or heavy, it is worth a conversation first.

This is exactly the thinking behind our Graduate educational fume cupboard. It is a mobile, ductless unit designed with schools in mind. Clear acrylic panels give all-round viewing, which is ideal for demonstrations where a class needs to see what is happening from every angle. Being ductless and on the move, it can be wheeled between labs and prep rooms rather than fixed in one place, and pass-through ports with quick-release connectors handle gas, water and waste. An alarm alerts the operator if the face velocity drops below a safe level, and internal lighting makes the work easy to see.

It was designed by a leading fume filtration specialist, and like the rest of our range it is built to work towards the guidance that matters for schools.

School chemistry covers a real mix of substances across a term, from acids to ammonia and more besides. A single narrow filter grade may not suit that variety, which is why a combined grade developed for the mixed chemistry of teaching laboratories can be a practical choice. Tell us what your syllabus involves and we will help you match the media.

A fume cupboard in a school earns its keep for many years if it is looked after. That means routine examination and testing, timely filter changes, and a quick repair when something needs attention. Because we service and supply filters for all makes, we can keep an existing cupboard running rather than replacing it before its time.