Inspections & Examinations

Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (Loler)

These Regulations (often abbreviated to LOLER) place duties on people and companies who own, operate or have control over lifting equipment. This includes all businesses and organisations whose employees use lifting equipment, whether owned by them or not. In most cases, lifting equipment is also work equipment so the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) will also apply (including inspection and maintenance). All lifting operations involving lifting equipment must be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner.

LOLER also requires that all equipment used for lifting is fit for purpose, appropriate for the task, suitably marked and, in many cases, subject to statutory periodic ‘thorough inspection‘. Records must be kept of all thorough inspections and any defects found must be reported to both the person responsible for the equipment and the relevant enforcing authority.

If your business or organisation undertakes lifting operations or is involved in providing lifting equipment for others to use, you must manage and control the risks to avoid any injury or damage.

Where you undertake lifting operations involving lifting equipment you must:

• Plan them properly.
• Use people who are sufficiently competent.
• Supervise them appropriately.
• Ensure that they are carried out in a safe manner.
• Most lifting equipment and lifting accessories will also fall within the scope of the Machinery Directive, as implemented by the UK Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations. Such equipment must have been subject to conformity assessment and be appropriately CE Marked and accompanied by a Declaration of Conformity (DoC) before being placed on the market or brought into use. This includes lifting equipment whose only source of power is directly applied human effort, for example manually operated chain blocks and car jacks.
• The DoC, which must accompany the new product, is an important document which should be retained by the user. The DoC may avoid the need for an initial thorough inspection before first use in those cases where the safety of that equipment does not depend on the conditions of its installation or assembly.

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Once an item of lifting equipment has a test certificate or has a CE certificate then it requires a thorough examination for fitness of purpose at prescribed intervals.

The thorough examination will be undertaken by a competent person usually independent of the equipment owner or company maintaining the equipment.

Lifting Tackle, attachments and items used for supporting personnel or suspending loads above personnel require periodic inspection. For example, a vehicle lift would normally undergo a thorough examination every six months. Fixed lifting appliances such as overhead cranes or swing arm jibs would undergo through examination every 12 months.

Etiss will undertake thorough examinations of your lifting tackle and equipment, either at your premises or drop it off at ours.

We will issue a report listing our findings and our recommendations.

We are able to undertake examinations on the following;

• Lifting Tackle
• Lifting Equipment
• Mobile Hydraulic Cranes
• Forklift Trucks
• Telehandlers
• Mobile access platforms
• Crawler Cranes
• Excavators
• Compressors

Please contact us if your requirement is not listed above.

Call us on 01206 231454

Class A1 Anchor Devices (Safety Harness Eyebolts) for Fall Protection

These devices are installed in brickwork (solid or cavity) , concrete and steel for the use of rope access methods for industrial purposes and are cover by BS 7883 “Code of practice for the design, selection, installation use and maintenance of anchor devices conforming to BS EN795.
Class A1 Anchor Devices should be installed and Tested by suitably qualified installers. The device is then subjected to periodic examination of not more than 12 months for fall arrest and 6 months for rope access. This will involve a visual inspection of the eye bolt, replacing the warning tag with a new one showing the inspection date and a pull test to verify the integrity of the fixing.

Etiss Ltd. Is an approved installer, tester and examiner of these devices.

Call us on 01206 231454