LOLER Inspections

LOLER 1998 places a legal duty on anyone who owns, operates, or controls lifting equipment used at work, across virtually every kind of workplace, from factories, construction sites, and warehouses to hospitals, farms, and offices.

The core requirement is straightforward: lifting equipment must be thoroughly examined by a competent person before first use, after anything that could affect its safety, and at regular intervals throughout its working life.

A thorough examination is more than a visual once-over. It is a systematic assessment of the equipment’s condition, carried out by someone with the training, experience, and independence to judge whether it remains safe to use. Where there is doubt about a component, the examination may require supplementary testing, including proof load testing, to confirm its capacity.

The regulations also require that lifting operations are properly planned, supervised, and carried out safely, but it is the thorough examination of the equipment itself that most of our customers come to us for. Get it wrong, and the consequences run from prosecution by the HSE to a refused insurance claim to someone being seriously hurt.

LOLER sets minimum examination intervals, and most operators treat those minimums as the answer. They are a floor, not a ceiling.

Lifting equipment used to lift people, and any accessory used for lifting, must be thoroughly examined at least every 6 months. All other lifting equipment must be examined at least every 12 months. Beyond that, equipment must be examined after installation or assembly at a new site, after any event likely to have affected its safety, and in line with any examination scheme drawn up by a competent person.

If your equipment is located outdoors at a coastal site, runs multiple shifts a day, or operates in conditions the manufacturer never anticipated, a competent person may well specify more frequent examinations. We will tell you what your equipment actually needs, set against how and where it is used, rather than simply defaulting to the legal minimum and leaving you exposed.

Our engineer arrives, identifies the equipment, and examines it against its rated capacity and intended use. That means checking the structure, load-bearing components, safety devices, controls, and anything subject to wear or fatigue, and looking for damage, deformation, corrosion, and signs of misuse.

Where the examination raises doubt about a component’s integrity or capacity, we test rather than guess. For most LOLER work, this is a thorough examination, but where proof load testing is required, for new equipment, after a major repair, or where capacity is in question, we carry that out too, using calibrated weights, water bags, or hydraulic methods on-site, or our tensile and compression test machines in-house.

If a defect is found, it is recorded and categorised by severity, so you know immediately whether the equipment can stay in service, needs attention by a set date, or must be taken out of use straight away. Nothing is left ambiguous.

A LOLER inspection that is not properly documented is no use to you when the HSE, your insurer, or an auditor comes asking. Every examination we carry out produces a thorough report, the legal record that proves the equipment was checked, by whom, and what was found.

Every certificate is issued through CheckedOK, our digital portal. It stores the equipment identifier, the examination date, the competent person’s details, any defects found and their status, and the next-due date. Authorised users log in, find the asset, and download the certificate. When an auditor asks what happened to a defect flagged eighteen months ago, the answer is on the screen, not in a filing cabinet.

For operators managing fleets of lifting equipment across multiple sites, the portal tracks every asset, flags what is due and when, and lets you export compliance reports on demand. Our certification is backed by ISO 9001 quality management and full LEEA accreditation, so the paperwork stands up to scrutiny.

You don’t need to be near Southampton to use our LOLER inspection services. Our engineers carry out LOLER inspections across the United Kingdom, with regional coverage built around routine customer schedules spanning the South Coast, Midlands, North West, North East, Scotland, and Wales.

For fixed equipment such as overhead cranes, gantries, and structural lifting points, we come to you, carrying out the examination on-site and issuing certification before we leave.

For portable equipment and lifting accessories, slings, shackles, chains, beams, and similar, our in-house facility offers thorough examination and testing up to 100 tonnes, with calibration traceable to United Kingdom national standards.

Operating lifting equipment at sea or on a UK-flagged vessel? Marine lifting falls under separate regulations, covered by our Marine LOLER 2006 inspections.