LOLER Thorough Examination: 6 or 12 Months? (UK Guide)

"Is LOLER 6 or 12 months?" is one of the most-asked questions in UK lifting — and the answer is: both, depending on what the equipment is and what it does. The intervals come from LOLER 1998 Regulation 9, they are statutory, and getting them wrong is one of the fastest ways to fail a site audit or hand an HSE inspector an easy enforcement win. Here is the full picture: the intervals table, what a thorough examination actually involves, who can do one, and the paperwork you must be able to produce.

The Intervals: 6 Months, 12 Months, or a Scheme

• Every 6 months — lifting accessories (chains, slings, shackles, eyebolts, spreader beams), and any lifting equipment used to lift people (MEWPs, man baskets, passenger hoists).
• Every 12 months — all other lifting equipment: cranes, excavators used for object handling, telehandlers, lorry loaders, overhead cranes, gin wheels, winches.
• Per a written scheme of examination — as an alternative to the fixed intervals, a competent person can draw up a scheme with intervals based on risk and usage. Common for large fleets and harsh-duty equipment.
• After exceptional circumstances — regardless of interval: after damage, failure, substantial modification, long out-of-service periods, or anything else liable to affect safety.
• Before first use — where safety depends on installation conditions (a tower crane after erection, an overhead crane after installation), examination is required before first use and after each assembly at a new location.

The Question Behind the Question: Accessory or Equipment?

Most interval mistakes come from misclassifying kit. The chain sling on the excavator is an accessory — 6 months; the excavator doing the lifting is equipment — 12 months. Run both on a 12-month cycle and every lift in months 7–12 is being made with uncertified rigging. The same trap catches telehandler lifting attachments, lorry loader hooks and brick forks. If it connects the load to the machine, treat it as an accessory.

What a Thorough Examination Is (and Is Not)

A thorough examination is a systematic, detailed examination by a competent person — someone with the knowledge and experience to detect defects and assess their significance, and crucially, independent enough to make impartial judgements. It is not a service, not an operator's daily check, and not an MOT-style pass at face value: the examiner tests, dismantles where necessary, and decides what supplementary tests (NDT, load testing) the equipment needs. In practice most contractors use their insurer's engineering surveyors or a specialist inspection body.

Daily and weekly operator checks still sit alongside it — LOLER Regulation 9 also requires inspection between thorough examinations where risk assessment identifies the need, and PUWER requires equipment to be maintained. The thorough examination is the statutory backstop, not the whole regime.

The Paperwork: Report of Thorough Examination

Every thorough examination produces a report of thorough examination (often called a LOLER certificate, though "certificate" appears nowhere in the regulations). Schedule 1 of LOLER prescribes its contents: equipment identification, date, safe working load, defects found, and the date by which the next examination is due. Keep reports available for inspection — site auditors and HSE inspectors ask for them within minutes of arriving, and missing or expired reports are among the most common audit failures. Defects involving "existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury" are also reported by the examiner directly to the enforcing authority — so the HSE may know about your defect before you have read the report.

How This Meets the Lift Plan

Every competent lift plan confirms current thorough examination for the machine and every accessory in the rigging arrangement — it is one of the items we verify line-by-line when checking subcontractor lift plans, and expired TE dates are a recurring rejection reason. If the excavator's examination lapsed last month, the lift is not compliant no matter how good the rest of the planning is. The wider duties sit in our plain-English LOLER guide and the L113 ACOP explainer.