Why is it six months?
LOLER Regulation 9 puts equipment that lifts persons on the six-monthly interval, and a MEWP does nothing else. A scissor lift standing idle in a yard is on the same cycle as one working five days a week — the regulation keys off what the equipment is for, not how much use it has had. A written examination scheme can vary intervals, but it is more likely to shorten this one than lengthen it.
What gets examined on a scissor lift?
The scissor pack itself — pins, bushes and pivot wear, where play accumulates and is load-bearing — plus the lift cylinder and hoses, the pothole protection, the platform, guardrails and gate, the extension deck and its locks, tilt sensors, overload sensing where fitted, and the emergency lowering system. Pin and bush wear is the characteristic scissor defect, and it is gradual.
What gets examined on a boom lift?
Boom structure and welds, slew ring and its bolts, the levelling and compensation system that keeps the basket horizontal, outriggers or stabilisers and their interlocks, the basket and its mounting, load sensing, and the emergency lowering or auxiliary power. On a telescopic boom the wear pads and extension chains or cables matter particularly, because a fault there shows up at full extension and nowhere else.
Does emergency lowering have to be tested?
It should be, and it is the check most worth insisting on. The system exists for the case where the machine has failed with someone at height and ground rescue has to bring them down. It is rarely used and therefore rarely proven. Knowing it worked on the day of the examination is not the same as knowing your people have practised using it.
Is a pre-use check still required?
Yes. PUWER expects the operator to check the machine at the start of use — controls, emergency stop, guardrails and gate, tyres, leaks, the condition of the ground it is standing on — and a six-monthly thorough examination does not displace that. Most MEWP incidents involve ground conditions, overturning or entrapment against a structure, none of which an examination six months earlier can predict.
What about hired MEWPs?
The report should arrive with the machine and should have more than a few weeks left on it. Six months runs out faster than people plan for on a long hire, and a machine that arrives in week two of a twenty-week project will need examining again before the project ends. That falls to whoever has control of it at the time, which is usually the site rather than the depot.
Sources & Further Reading
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