LOLER inspection cost, set by your equipment, not a list

The four inputs an accurate quote is built from

Every accurate LOLER quote we issue is assembled from the same four inputs. None of them is exotic, and a duty holder who has them to hand can turn a vague estimate into a fixed price in one email.

Send those four things and the quote that comes back is itemised, fixed and comparable. Withhold them and any provider, us included, has to price the uncertainty instead of the work.

Per item or per visit: the economics that decide your price

LOLER pricing everywhere reduces to two shapes. Per item pricing charges a rate for each examination, so ten slings cost ten small fees. Per visit pricing charges for the attendance and clears everything that is due while the engineer is on site. Most real quotes are a blend, and understanding the blend is how you compare providers fairly.

The fixed costs of an examination visit, the travel, the setup, the paperwork run afterwards, do not care how many items get examined. Spread across two items they dominate the price. Spread across forty they almost vanish from it. That is the single largest lever a duty holder controls: density. The more of your due equipment one visit clears, the less each item carries.

Density is also why the same item carries a different effective price on different sites. A single sling examined on its own visit costs its share of a whole attendance. The same sling examined during a forty item visit costs minutes. Nothing about the sling changed, only what travelled with it.

It is also why comparing two quotes line by line can mislead. A provider with a low headline item rate and a separate call out charge for every visit can cost more across a year than a provider whose item rate looks higher but who plans the calendar so the whole site clears in fewer attendances. Compare the annual total for your actual fleet, never the single line.

The 6 and 12 month cycles, and what they do to an annual budget

The examination interval is not a provider policy, it is the law. Regulation 9 of LOLER sets the maximum intervals: 6 months for lifting equipment that lifts people and for every lifting accessory, 12 months for other lifting equipment, or the intervals a competent person sets in a written examination scheme. Exceptional events, a shock load, a collision, a long lay up, trigger an examination regardless of the calendar.

For budgeting, the cycles mean one thing above all: anything on the 6 month cycle is examined twice a year, so its true annual cost is double its per examination cost. A care home’s hoists and slings, a builder’s chains and shackles, an MEWP fleet used for people: these are twice a year items, and a quote that only prices one round has only priced half the year.

The third route in the regulation, an examination scheme drawn up by a competent person, exists for exactly the fleets where the fixed cycles fit badly, and it can move intervals in either direction where the risk justifies it. For most sites the fixed cycles are the sensible default, but a large or unusual fleet paying for examinations that its risk profile does not need is a fleet that should ask about a scheme.

The two cycles also decide the calendar. A site with both 6 and 12 month equipment settles naturally into two visits a year, with the 12 month items cleared on one of them. Aligning first examination dates so items fall due together is dull administrative work that pays for itself every year afterwards.

Why a sling and a crane do not cost the same to examine

Equipment type moves examination time more than any other single factor, so it moves the quote. A useful way to read your own asset list is by class.

Lifting accessories

Slings, chains, shackles and eyebolts are quick individually and slow in aggregate. Each one is identified, checked against its marking and condition, and recorded. The cost story here is volume and organisation: a labelled rack of thirty accessories examines in a fraction of the time of thirty items scattered across vans and toolboxes, and both sit on the 6 month cycle.

Trucks, MEWPs and mobile plant

A forklift or scissor lift is a substantial examination: chains, forks, hydraulics, structure and controls. Attachments matter, a fork mounted jib or rotator is examined too, and often forgotten from the list. These are the items where a photo in advance most improves the accuracy of the quote.

Cranes, hoists and runways

Overhead travelling cranes, jib cranes and runway beams add access to the examination itself: working at height, isolations and sometimes a load test. They are the items most likely to need your input on timing, because examining them can mean pausing whatever works underneath them.

Vehicle lifts and garage equipment

Two post and four post lifts, jacking beams and mobile column lifts are lifting equipment like any other, and a garage’s examination price is driven by bay access: a lift examines fastest with the bay empty and the lift free to cycle. Where the same workshop runs an engine crane and slings, the accessory cycle pulls the whole site naturally onto six monthly visits.

Passenger and goods lifts

Lifts that carry people sit on the 6 month cycle and involve motor rooms, pits and shaft access. They are usually the single largest item on a mixed list, and the item where an experienced provider’s report is most valuable, because lift defects are graded against real risk rather than a contractor’s repair appetite.

Access, preparation and downtime: the costs that never appear on an invoice

Two costs sit around every examination that no quote line names. The first is access: the powered access, isolations or permits that let the engineer reach the equipment safely. The second is downtime: what your operation loses while the equipment is out of use for its examination.

Both are controllable. Access is cheapest when it is declared up front, an examination priced knowing the crane needs a MEWP costs less than one that discovers it on arrival. Downtime is cheapest when the examination rides an existing pause: a shift change, a planned maintenance window, a quiet Friday afternoon. We plan visits around your working pattern precisely because the invoice is only part of what the examination costs you.

• Declare access needs with the asset list: height, isolations, permits, escorts
• Book examinations into pauses you already planned, not into production time
• Have equipment available and, where relevant, unloaded when the engineer arrives
• Keep previous reports on hand so defect history does not have to be reconstructed

Downtime also has a quieter cousin: failed planning. Equipment that misses its examination date cannot lawfully be used, so a booking that slips does not just delay paperwork, it parks the equipment. Sites that book with margin never meet that cost, and it is the most expensive line never written on any quote.

What a LOLER quote should itemise, line by line

A quote you can hold a provider to has named parts. When the parts are visible you can compare providers on the same basis, and nothing arrives on the invoice that was not on the quote. Ours itemises, and any quote you accept should:

• Every item, identified. Each piece of equipment and each accessory the price covers, so nothing due is silently out of scope
• The cycle each item sits on. 6 month, 12 month or scheme intervals, so the annual picture is explicit
• Attendance and travel, stated once. Not discovered per visit after you have committed
• The report, included. A Schedule 1 Report of Thorough Examination for every item, with defects graded and next due dates flagged
• Retest and follow up terms. What a re examination after a defect repair costs before you ever need one

One thing an itemised quote should never contain is a charge for certificates as a separate product. The report is the statutory output of the examination, not an optional extra, and a provider unbundling it is charging twice for one duty.

What moves a LOLER price up or down

Every input above pushes the figure in a knowable direction. This is the honest version of the table, the one a provider fills in before you commit rather than after.

Notice that every row in the left column is in your control. That is the real answer to what a LOLER inspection costs: less, when the duty holder runs the process like the planned statutory work it is.

Insurer bundled inspection against an independent quote

Many duty holders never see a LOLER price at all, because the examinations arrive bundled with the engineering insurance. Both routes are lawful, the regulations ask for a competent person, not a particular employer, so the comparison is commercial, and it deserves to be made with real numbers rather than habit.

The bundled route’s price is buried in the premium, which makes it feel free and makes it hard to compare. Ask your broker what the inspection service element costs and the number usually surprises. The independent route prices the examinations in the open, itemised per the section above, which is the only way the two can be compared like for like.

The structural difference is who the examiner answers to. An insurer’s surveyor serves the policy’s risk position. An independent examiner serves the report. In practice the day to day output is similar, but scheduling flexibility, itemisation and the freedom to plan visits around your operation are where independents typically win the annual figure, and the deeper comparison lives in our insurer versus independent guide.

If you switch in either direction, the reports are yours. Examination history travels with the equipment, not the provider, so a change of examiner never resets the record, and any provider suggesting otherwise is negotiating, not advising.

Cutting the cost without cutting the compliance

There are two ways to make a LOLER number smaller. One is to buy less examination, skip the accessories, stretch the intervals, hope. That way costs more the first time a report is asked for after an incident, and a missing thorough examination has no cheap ending. The other is to make the examination cheaper to deliver, which is entirely legitimate and mostly administration.

• Consolidate providers so one visit clears everything due, across all four regimes if you run more than one
• Align first examination dates so equipment falls due together instead of dribbling through the year
• Keep the asset register current: every item added to the fleet joins the list the day it arrives
• Photograph new equipment on arrival so the next quote needs no survey
• Fix small defects between examinations so they never become failed items and retests

The false economies are just as recognisable: a quote that ignores accessories, an interval that quietly stretches past the statutory maximum, a price that omits the report. Each one converts a small saving now into a large exposure later, and an A category defect found late stops equipment on the spot regardless of what was saved getting there.

Getting a fixed LOLER quote for your site

We price LOLER the way this page describes: from your asset list and photos, itemised, fixed before the visit, with the report included and the retest terms stated. One item or a whole site, and if your equipment spans regimes we quote PUWER, PSSR and LEV testing into the same visit plan, because one attendance across four regimes is the cheapest compliance any site can buy.

Send the list to info@seis.engineering or call 0330 043 8191 and a fixed, itemised quote comes back, usually the same working day. The deeper reading sits alongside this page if you want it first: