Lift Inspections in London

Which lifts we inspect

Every kind of lift in a workplace or a building with common parts is lifting equipment under LOLER. The interval depends on whether it carries people:

• Passenger lifts: six-monthly, in offices, flats, hotels, hospitals and shops
• Platform lifts: six-monthly, including inclined stair platform and through-floor lifts
• Stairlifts: six-monthly where provided at work, in care homes or in common parts
• Goods lifts: twelve-monthly if goods only, six-monthly if people travel in them
• Dumbwaiters and service lifts: twelve-monthly, because nobody can travel in them
• Vehicle lifts: six-monthly, as HSE recommends, because people work beneath them
• Tail lifts: twelve-monthly for goods only, six-monthly if they carry a person

Each type has its own page with what the examination covers and the questions people ask about it.

Why the interval is six months or twelve

LOLER 1998 Regulation 9 sets six months for lifting equipment that carries people and twelve months for goods-only equipment, unless a competent person has drawn up a written scheme of examination that sets a different interval for that lift. A lift also needs examining after installation where its safety depends on how it was installed, and after any substantial alteration or event that could affect its safety. A maintenance visit is not the examination and does not reset its date.

What you get after the inspection

A Report of Thorough Examination with everything LOLER Schedule 1 requires — including the lift identified, the date examined, its safe working load, any defect with what must be done and by when, and the date the next examination is due — with each defect graded by severity. On top of that:

• Same-day report: issued digitally on the day of the inspection, not weeks later
• Photographs: of what was inspected and of any defect, in every report as standard
• Records and reminders: we keep the record on file and remind you before the next one falls due

If anything is not safe to use, you are told in writing before we leave. Because we sell no repairs, a defect on the report is never a quotation in disguise.

Lift inspections across London

We inspect lifts in every London borough, from the City and Canary Wharf to the outer boroughs: office towers, blocks of flats, hospitals, hotels, shops and warehouses. London has some of the oldest lifts still in daily use, many in mansion blocks and modernised in stages, alongside machine-room-less lifts in new developments. Part of every examination is checking what has been repaired or modified since the last one.

Visits are timed around the building: we agree the time in advance and, where there is more than one lift, examine one car at a time so that the building is never without a lift.