Inspection costs, quoted from what you actually own

One asset list prices everything

Whatever mix of regimes your site needs, the quoting input is the same: a list of the equipment with photos. Machines, lifting equipment and accessories, anything under pressure, and every extraction point. One walk around the site with a phone builds it in an hour, and it is the single document that turns four vague estimates into one fixed, itemised quote.

The photos matter as much as the list. They tell an engineer surveyor the type, the condition, the markings and the awkwardness of each item, which is what lets the quote be fixed without a paid survey visit. They also catch problems early: an unmarked sling or a receiver with no nameplate is cheaper to deal with before examination day than during it.

What each regime needs from the list is one line each. Lifting: every item that lifts and every accessory, with its marked capacity where legible. Machinery: everything with a motor or a blade, and a photo that shows its guarding. Pressure: nameplates, the boiler or receiver, and the Written Scheme if one exists. Extraction: every hood or capture point, not just the fan on the roof.

If you only need one regime, send the list for that regime and start with its guide below. If you are not sure which regimes apply to what, send the whole list anyway: sorting equipment into its regimes is part of quoting, not a service on top.

The four cost guides

Each guide covers one regime at full depth: what you are actually buying, the inputs an accurate quote needs, what moves the price in each direction, what the quote should itemise, a worked example from a real shape of site, and how to cut the cost without cutting the compliance.

The four share a spine, because honest pricing works the same way everywhere: information up front, density on the day, margin in the diary. Where they differ is where the regimes differ, and those differences are exactly where cheap quotes hide their gaps, which is why each guide gets its own page rather than a paragraph here.

One visit, four regimes: the saving most sites never claim

Most sites buy inspection in fragments: lifting from one provider, machinery from another, the compressor from whoever installed it, extraction from a specialist. Every fragment carries its own travel, its own administration and its own diary, and every one of those is a fixed cost your site pays again.

A single independent attendance changes the arithmetic. The engineer who has finished the lifting equipment is already standing next to the machinery it serves. The compressor is in the same building. The welding bay’s extraction runs above the machines just inspected. Clearing them together is not a discount, it is the removal of duplicated cost, and it is the structural saving the four guides keep returning to.

Estates with more than one site compound the effect. The same attendance logic that clears one building cheaply clears three sites on a planned route more cheaply still, and a single asset list format across the estate means every site’s renewal is the same conversation instead of three different ones.

It also fixes the calendar. Four providers means four sets of anniversaries drifting apart until something is always due. One plan puts the site onto a rhythm, usually two visits a year built around the six month lifting cycle, with everything else aligned to ride along.

What every quote should itemise, whatever the regime

The regimes differ in what is examined. They should never differ in how transparently it is priced. Any statutory inspection quote you accept, from us or anyone, should put these on paper:

• Every item, identified. The equipment the price covers, item by item, so scope is explicit before anyone attends
• The interval each item sits on, so the quote describes a year, not a visit
• Attendance and travel, stated once, never discovered per booking afterwards
• The statutory paperwork, included. The report or record each regime requires, never sold as a separate product
• Follow up terms. What a retest or re examination costs, fixed before the first defect is found

The itemisation is also your protection after the visit. When findings arrive, an itemised quote means every defect, retest and follow up lands against a named item at a known rate, instead of opening a negotiation. The paperwork side matters just as much: what arrives after the visit differs by regime, a Report of Thorough Examination for lifting, a written record for machinery, an examination report for pressure, a test report for extraction, and in every case it is the statutory output of the work, already inside the price.

Two quotes that both pass this test can be compared in minutes, on the annual figure for your actual site. A quote that fails it cannot be compared with anything, which is usually the point of writing it that way.

How to read a cheap quote

A low figure is not a red flag on its own. Density, planning and a well run site legitimately make inspection cheaper, and the guides show how. A low figure earned by removing scope is a different thing, and each regime has a signature version worth knowing before you sign.

A useful habit when two figures sit far apart: ask both providers the same question, what would make this number wrong. The one pricing real work answers with specifics, access, condition, missing paperwork. The one pricing a template answers with reassurance. The specifics are what you are actually buying.

None of these gaps shows on an invoice. All of them show later, in front of an inspector or an insurer, which is when the cheap quote finishes collecting its price.

Where the savings genuinely live

Across all four regimes the honest savings are the same three, and none of them is a discount. Information up front: the asset list and photos remove the uncertainty a provider would otherwise price, and they are the difference between a quote and a hedge. Density on the day: the more of your due equipment one attendance clears, the less each item carries, because travel and administration do not care how much gets inspected. Margin in the diary: bookings placed inside the statutory limits, not against them, so an access problem moves a date instead of stopping equipment.

All three belong to you, not to any provider. That is the quiet theme of this whole silo: rates matter less than the shape of the programme, and the shape of the programme is administration a duty holder controls. A site that runs its register, photographs new equipment on arrival and books with margin buys cheaper inspection from everyone, us included.

The false economies are the mirror image, and they are the same everywhere too: scope quietly removed, intervals stretched past what the law or the risk allows, paperwork treated as optional. Each one converts a small visible saving into a large invisible exposure, and the first incident, insurance renewal or enforcement visit prices it accurately.

Getting your quote

Send the asset list and photos to info@seis.engineering or call 0330 043 8191, and a fixed, itemised quote comes back, usually the same working day. One item or a whole estate, one regime or all four. If the list does not exist yet, start with the phone camera and the guides above: each one tells you exactly what its regime needs to see.

And if you are comparing us against a provider you already use, do it properly: the insurer versus independent guide covers the bundled route honestly, and the switching providers guide shows how examination history moves with your equipment, because your reports are yours whoever wrote them.