PSSR examination cost, and the scheme question that sets it
Pressure system pricing starts with one question: do you hold a current written scheme of examination? Examining against an existing scheme and drawing one up first are two different jobs. Tell us which you are, with the safe operating limits, and the quote is exact.
One regime, two different price questions
Every PSSR conversation about money is really two conversations, and quotes that blur them are the ones that surprise people later. The first question is the Written Scheme of Examination: the certified document that must exist before a pressure system runs at all. The second is the examinations to that scheme: the recurring rounds of careful, critical scrutiny that follow, each ending in a report. One is priced once and reviewed, the other is priced per round for the life of the plant.
The split also explains why pressure quotes vary more than any other regime’s. Two providers can quote the same site wildly differently because one has included a scheme review and one has assumed the scheme is current. Neither number is wrong, they are answers to different questions, and the fix is simply to make every quote say which question it answered.
The order is fixed by law, not preference. Regulation 8 says the system is not operated until a suitable Written Scheme, certified by a competent person, covers it. Regulation 9 says each part is then examined in accordance with that scheme. So the scheme is the first cost on a new or newly discovered system, and the examinations are the running cost every year after.
Ask any PSSR quote which of the two products it is pricing. A figure that does not say whether the Written Scheme is included is not yet a quote.
What drawing up a Written Scheme costs depends on system extent
A Written Scheme is priced by what it has to cover, and what it has to cover is defined by the system, not the site. The scheme must identify every part in which a defect could give rise to danger: the vessels, the protective devices, the relevant pipework. A single compressor and receiver in a garage is a short document. A bakery with a steam boiler, an air system and a refrigeration pack is three interacting scopes.
Three things move the scheme cost in practice. The count of vessels and protective devices, because each is identified and given an examination requirement. The fluid and its energy: steam brings boilers into scope at any pressure, while most other systems enter above the 250 bar litre threshold, and higher stored energy justifies closer scrutiny. And the quality of your existing information: nameplates, previous schemes and drawings shorten the work, while a system with no paperwork has to be surveyed into existence first.
Who writes the scheme matters to the price too. Insurer linked schemes often arrive bundled with the policy, and they can be perfectly sound, but the scheme author and the examiner both need to be competent and sufficiently independent, and a scheme written without seeing the plant tends to be generic. A scheme drawn from your actual system usually pays for itself in tighter, better justified examination scopes.
A scheme also has to stay suitable. Add a receiver, move the compressor, change the safe operating limits and the scheme is reviewed. We price reviews as the small revisions they usually are, which is one more reason to keep the original scheme with its author.
The examination to the scheme: what a round actually involves
The recurring cost is the Regulation 9 examination, and the scheme itself tells you what each round contains, which is why two sites with the same equipment can carry different examination prices with both being right. A typical scheme alternates out of service examinations, the system cooled, drained and opened for internal scrutiny, with in service checks of the system running under normal conditions.
The out of service rounds carry the weight. Internal surfaces are examined for corrosion, erosion and cracking, fittings and mountings are checked, and protective devices are proven, because a safety valve that does not lift is a boiler without a safety valve. In service rounds confirm the system behaves at its operating limits and that controls and gauges tell the truth.
Each round ends in a written report stating the condition of the parts examined, any repairs or changes required with dates, the date after which the system may not run without its next examination, and whether the scheme itself remains suitable. That last line is the one everyone skips and the one that quietly protects you, because it means the programme corrects itself as the plant ages.
Your side of a smooth round is mostly presence: someone who knows the isolations, holds the keys and can answer how the system runs. An examiner who spends the first hour finding the person with the valve key is an examination costing more than it should, on your clock as much as ours.
Steam and air: why a boiler examines differently to a receiver
Most quotes we issue cover one of two worlds, and they price differently for good reasons.
Compressed air systems
The receiver is the anchor: a straightforward vessel whose internal examination is quick once opened, plus its safety valve and gauge. Pipework joins the scope where a defect could be dangerous. Air systems are where multiple small vessels on one site reward a single planned round, because each extra receiver adds little once the visit exists.
Steam plant
Steam is in scope at any pressure, and a boiler is the most demanding examination in the regime: internal surfaces, fittings, water level controls, and safety valves that are proven rather than assumed. Boiler rounds need real preparation and real cooling time, which is why they are planned months ahead and priced as the substantial work they are. Anyone pricing a steam boiler examination at receiver money has not read the scheme.
Mobile and hired systems
Site compressors and other mobile systems carry the same duties with one twist the regulations make explicit: the owner of a mobile system holds the examination duties, and the date after which it may not run must be legibly and durably marked on the system itself. If you hire in a compressor, look for that marked date before it works on your site, because the plant may be hired but the incident would be yours.
Boiler owners hold one cost lever the quote never shows: water treatment. A treated boiler presents clean surfaces that examine quickly and pass predictably. A scaled one examines slowly and generates the repairs that generate the follow ups. The treatment log is part of what the examiner reads, and it is the difference between routine rounds and eventful ones.
Everything else under pressure
Autoclaves, sterilisers, refrigeration packs above the compressor power threshold, coffee boilers in commercial use: the same two questions decide the price every time. What does the scheme require, and what preparation does the examination need. If a system is missing from your scheme entirely, that is the first gap to close, before any examination is priced.
New plant, secondhand plant and the system nobody schemed
The most expensive pressure systems to bring into compliance are the ones that arrive without paperwork, and they arrive more often than anyone admits. Three situations cover almost all of them.
New plant should land with its documentation: declarations, design limits, and the information a scheme is written from. Insist on it at purchase, because every missing document is survey time later. The scheme, or the revision folding the new vessel into an existing scheme, belongs in the commissioning budget, not the surprise column.
Secondhand plant is where the caution lives. A used receiver or boiler with no history has an unknown internal life, so the honest sequence is survey, scheme, examination, and only then service. The purchase price of undocumented pressure plant should always be read with that sequence added, because it is part of what the equipment really costs.
And the discovered system: the compressor that has fed the workshop for a decade with nothing on file. There is no penalty for putting it right that compares with the position of leaving it, and the route is the same short sequence. Most discovered systems turn out to need a modest scheme and a routine examination, and the fear of the first conversation is usually the largest cost involved.
Protective devices: small items, non negotiable scrutiny
Safety valves, bursting discs, pressure gauges and level controls are physically the smallest items on the list and contractually the least skippable. The scheme names the testing they need because they are the barrier between normal operation and the stored energy doing what stored energy does. A receiver examination that has not proven the safety valve is a visual, not an examination.
The scheme records each device’s set pressure and duty, which is why device work belongs with whoever holds the scheme. A valve reset without the scheme updated is a system whose paperwork and hardware disagree, and that mismatch is the kind of finding that turns a routine examination into a long one.
For pricing, devices behave like accessories do under LOLER: cheap individually, meaningful in aggregate, and cheapest when the visit is planned so they are all reached, tested and recorded in one pass. Where a valve needs bench testing or replacement, the quote should already say how a follow up is priced, so a failed device becomes a line item rather than a negotiation.
The next examination date is a hard stop, so buy margin with the quote
Every Regulation 9 report states the date after which the system may not be operated without its next examination. That wording is worth reading twice: it is not a reminder, it is a stop date. A boiler that passes its date unexamined is not late paperwork, it is plant that cannot lawfully run, and for most operations that is the single largest cost anywhere near this regime.
The regulations do allow a postponement, and its narrowness tells you how seriously to treat the date. The competent person must agree in writing that the delay will not give rise to danger, only one postponement is allowed for any examination, and the enforcing authority is notified in writing before the original date passes. It exists for genuine operational corners, not as a scheduling tool, and a programme that leans on it is a programme that has already failed.
The cheap alternative is margin. We diary examinations well inside the stop date, so an access problem, a parts delay or a bad week moves a booking instead of stopping a boiler. When you compare PSSR quotes, ask each provider how their scheduling handles the stop date, because a low figure attached to a provider who books at the limit is carrying a risk the number does not show.
The report’s next examination date is a legal stop, and the lawful postponement route is deliberately narrow. Margin in the diary is the cheapest insurance in the regime.
What a PSSR quote should itemise
Pressure work rewards precise paperwork, and the quote is the first piece of it. A quote you can compare and hold a provider to states:
- Scheme or examination, explicitly. Whether the Written Scheme is included, being reviewed, or assumed to exist
- The system, part by part. Vessels, boilers, protective devices and relevant pipework in scope, matching the scheme
- The round type. In service, out of service or both, and the preparation each round needs from you
- The report, included. A written report per examination stating condition, actions with dates, the next examination date and the scheme verdict
- Follow up terms. How device retests and post repair examinations are priced before one is needed
And as with every regime on this site, judge the annual figure across the whole system rather than any single line. A scheme with well set intervals, rounds planned into your shutdowns and devices cleared in the same visits is a cheaper year than any collection of individually cheap examinations booked reactively.
One caution specific to this regime: a quote that prices examinations without ever asking to see the Written Scheme is pricing blind. The scheme defines the work. A provider who has not read it is guessing, whatever the number says.
What moves a PSSR price up or down
| Driver | Moves the price down | Moves the price up |
|---|---|---|
| The Written Scheme | Current, on site, with its author | Missing or outgrown, survey needed first |
| System extent | One receiver and its devices | Boiler, vessels, pipework and devices interacting |
| Fluid and energy | Small air system | Steam plant, high bar litre systems |
| Preparation | Opened and isolated to plan, inside your shutdown | Cooling and draining forced into production time |
| Round shape | Whole system examined in one planned visit | Parts falling due separately across the year |
| Records | Previous reports on hand | History reconstructed before examining |
The pattern repeats across every regime on this site: the provider sets the rates, the duty holder’s organisation sets the bill.
A bakery’s steam and air, taken through a full cycle
A commercial bakery came to us with a steam boiler serving the ovens, a compressed air system with two receivers, and a scheme written years earlier that still described a receiver they had scrapped. The ask was simple: make the paperwork match the plant and price a year properly.
The revised scheme also settled next year’s conversation before it started: the intervals, the preparation lists and the stop dates are now written down, so the following year’s quote is a diary exercise rather than a re investigation.
The January shutdown did the heavy lifting. The examination cost what the quote said, because the preparation rode downtime the bakery was taking anyway.
Getting a fixed PSSR quote for your system
We quote PSSR the way this page describes: scheme and examinations priced as the two distinct products they are, the system itemised part by part, preparation stated so your side of the cost is visible, reports included, follow up terms fixed in advance. If the same site runs lifting equipment, machinery or extraction, the LOLER, PUWER and LEV work is planned into the same attendance.
Send whatever you have, the scheme if it exists, photos and nameplates if it does not, to info@seis.engineering, or call 0330 043 8191. The related reading:
PSSR examination cost: your questions answered
How much does a PSSR examination cost?
What is a written scheme of examination and why does it change the price?
Is my compressed air system even in scope?
Does the examination mean shutting down production?
What does SOL mean on my asset list?
When do I get the report?
My system has been modified since the scheme was written. Does that matter?
Can PSSR work share a visit with our other inspections?
Do you hold a current written scheme, and what are your safe operating limits? Send those with the address, photos and your shutdown windows, and the quote is exact.