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Integrity Lift Compliance
Knowledge Base

Do Slings and Chains Need Examining as Often as the Lift?

Lifting accessories are examined every six months, not every twelve. That surprises people, because accessories do not lift persons and the six-monthly limb is usually explained as the one for passenger-carrying plant. Accessories are on it in their own right, and they are the items most often missed entirely.

Written and reviewed by Mark Crowley, Director, Integrity Lift Compliance Ltd — 26+ years hands-on lifting equipment engineering — NHS, commercial and industrial estates

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What counts as a lifting accessory?

Equipment used to attach a load to lifting machinery without being part of the machine: chain and webbing slings, wire rope slings, shackles, eyebolts, lifting beams and spreader bars, magnets and vacuum lifters, and the hooks and rings that connect them. If it sits between the crane and the load, it is almost certainly an accessory.

Why six months and not twelve?

LOLER Regulation 9 puts two things on the six-monthly interval: lifting equipment for lifting persons, and lifting accessories. They are separate limbs of the same provision. Accessories are there because they are small, highly stressed, easily damaged and easily substituted for something that looks similar — the failure modes are quick, not gradual.

Why are accessories the items most often missed?

Because they are not bolted to anything. A passenger lift is on an asset register and has a maintenance contract. A box of slings in a workshop belongs to nobody in particular, gets borrowed between sites, and has no service visit to attach an examination to. It is common to find a site with impeccable crane records and an unexamined bag of shackles underneath it.

Does a sling need marking as well as examining?

Yes. An accessory should carry its identification and its rated capacity legibly, and that marking is what lets a report be matched to the item in front of you. An unmarked sling cannot be tied to any examination record, which in practice makes it unusable — it may have been examined, but nobody can show which one it was.

How long must accessory records be kept?

LOLER Regulation 11 requires reports for lifting accessories to be kept available for at least two years: the report of an accessory's first examination for two years after it is made, and each periodic report until the next one or for two years, whichever is later. Keeping them longer is usually worth it anyway: a defect history across a set of slings tells you something about how they are being used that a single current report cannot.

What should be done with a failed accessory?

Remove it from service and destroy or permanently disable it rather than setting it aside. A condemned sling left in the same rack as serviceable ones will be picked up and used, and because it looks like the others, nobody will question it. This is the one case where the practical response goes beyond what the paperwork strictly requires.

Sources & Further Reading

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Related Knowledge

How Often Are LOLER Inspections Required?
Six months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, twelve months for everything else, or in line with a written examination scheme drawn up by a competent person. That is the whole rule. What catches duty-holders out is rarely the interval itself — it is when the clock starts, what resets it, and the examinations that fall outside the cycle altogether.
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LOLER Record Keeping: How Long to Keep Your Reports
LOLER 1998 Regulation 11 requires duty-holders to keep records of every Thorough Examination. As a working rule: keep reports for lifting equipment for as long as it stays in service, and for lifting accessories for at least two years.
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A LOLER inspection — properly a thorough examination — is a systematic engineering assessment of lifting equipment by a competent person, to establish whether it is safe to remain in service. It is not a visual walk-round and it is not a service visit. This is what one actually involves.
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