Castle Group Ltd

Castle Group Ltd: noise, vibration and environmental monitoring from Scarborough

Castle Group Ltd is a North Yorkshire company that designs and manufactures electronic instruments for noise and vibration measurement, and also supplies, hires, calibrates and repairs environmental monitoring equipment. Its activity extends to training and consultancy in areas such as noise at work, hand-arm and whole-body vibration, environmental noise, air sampling, gas detection, electromagnetic fields and light measurement.

The company states that it has been involved in environmental measurement and monitoring technology for 50 years, and its own history dates its founding to early 1971. It operates from Salter Road on the Scarborough Business Park, and its registered company number is 2388128.

Instruments and product lines

Castle Group sells instruments, accessories and consumables, and presents several product families on its site:

• SONIK sound level meters: offered in Class 1 and Class 2 models, with easy operation and setup, more than 24 hours of battery life, and compatibility with PC and cloud software.
• SONIK-E: described as a lean, green measuring machine with ultra-low sound level detection and simultaneous LAeq, LCeq and PeakC measurements, working with PC and cloud software.
• Castle dBAir: an octave-band sound meter with Class 1 or Class 2 options, data logging and secure cloud-based software, aimed at noise at work and environmental noise applications.
• Castle Vexo H: a hand-arm vibration meter presented as the UK's best-selling HAV meter, supplied with PC software, compliant with ISO 8041:2005 and designed for quick and simple measurements.
• Calibration accessories: a newly designed calibrator with three output levels (94 dB, 104 dB and 114 dB), a 1 kHz calibration tone, automatic pairing with the company's wireless meters, compatibility with standard 1/2-inch microphones and operation with Castle Cloud.

The catalogue also covers vibration meters under the Vexo and VibA(8) names, audiometers through a medical company acquired in 1995, and OEM equipment resale, which the company expanded after 2014.

Hire, calibration and repair

Alongside equipment sales, Castle Group runs a rental service that allows customers to hire instruments rather than buy them. Its calibration laboratory provides calibration and repair services for equipment ranging from air samplers to vibration meters. The company also offers a trade-in and upgrade programme and publishes a calibration price list and rental options.

Training and consultancy

Castle Group delivers safety and environmental courses both on customers' sites and at what it describes as a 4-star training facility. Its course subjects include noise at work, vibration safety at work, environmental noise, air sampling, EMF regulations and safety. A three-day Noise at Work Competent Persons course is scheduled at venues in Scarborough and Peterborough, with lunch, coffees and cakes each day and a free meal and wine on the first night. The site lists upcoming training dates and prices courses from £975. It also offers e-learning and webinars, free seminars, and consultancy for both simple and more demanding assessments.

Software and support

The company provides Castle Cloud, a database system for managing measurement data with customised reporting, as well as dBdataPro and VibdataPro software. Support material includes product manuals, datasheets, technical information, product registration and a video channel. Castle Group states that it holds an ISO 9001 certificate and is a member of BSIF.

History and structure

Castle was founded in 1971 by an engineer and a sales and marketing professional to design, manufacture and sell electronic instruments and to undertake contract design work. An early contract with the Open University for a sound level indicator led to more than 7,000 units supplied and, together with direct commercial sales of around 20,000 meters, made the CS15C Sound Level Indicator what the company calls the biggest-selling sound level measurement product ever. After a downturn in orders before the 1979 recession, two senior employees completed a management buyout in 1980 and rebuilt the company, recruiting design engineers and later purchasing a factory near Scarborough to establish test and calibration facilities and expand consultancy, training and instrument hire.

The company describes four stages of engineering development after the buyout: revamping the product line, designing a new body style, introducing microprocessor technology and adopting surface-mount technology and multi-layer printed circuit boards for pocket-sized instruments. In the early 1990s it added specialist vibration measuring equipment and moved towards more clearly defined product ranges. In 1995 it acquired a noise and vibration consultancy and hire company and a medical company selling audiometers, and was renamed Castle Group Ltd. Two new directors were appointed in 2000, and after the 2008 credit crisis the company restructured and invested in new products and services. A further management buyout in 2014 led to an online store, expanded training and rapid growth in OEM equipment resale, alongside the launch of the dBAir sound meter and the Vexo and VibA(8) vibration meters.

International reach and online sales

Castle Group states that it has partners and distributors around the world and publishes a list of international distributors. For UK online sales it directs customers to castleshop.co.uk, and it operates separate websites for shop, rental, calibration, training and consultancy.