How Often Should Workplace Equipment Be Inspected? Intervals by Regulation

Most people asking this want one number they can put in a calendar. The awkward truth is that a single workshop can hold equipment governed by four different regulations, each with its own timing rules. Here is how often workplace equipment needs inspecting, set out by the rules that actually apply to each type of kit.

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How Often Should Workplace Equipment Be Inspected?

There is no single interval for all workplace equipment. The frequency depends on which regulations cover the item. Lifting equipment runs to 6 or 12 months, pressure systems follow a written scheme, extraction is tested at least every 14 months, and general work equipment is inspected at intervals set by risk.

So the first job is not picking a date. It is working out which regime each piece of equipment sits under, because that decides everything else.

Why There Is No Single Interval

Workplace equipment is a broad term covering nearly everything your people use to do the job. The law does not treat it as one category, and it deliberately sets different rules for different hazards.

A forklift, a bench grinder, an air compressor and a dust extractor might sit within a few metres of each other. All four are workplace equipment, and all four are governed differently. In our experience, that mismatch is the single biggest cause of gaps, because a business sets one blanket schedule and quietly misses the items that needed something else.

Statutory Inspection Intervals at a Glance

The main intervals across UK workplaces break down as follows:

• Lifting equipment: every 6 months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, every 12 months for other lifting equipment, or as set by a written scheme

• General work equipment: no fixed interval, decided by risk assessment, with power presses the exception at 6 or 12 months depending on their guarding

• Pressure systems: at the intervals set in the written scheme of examination, commonly around 12 months for many items

• Local exhaust ventilation: at least every 14 months, and frequently every 6 months for higher risk processes

• Personal fall protection: a pre-use check every time it is worn, plus a detailed inspection by a competent person at least every 6 months, or every 3 months in arduous conditions

• Working platforms in construction: before use and then within the previous 7 days, where a person could fall 2 metres or more

Those are the defaults. Each one can be shortened by a risk assessment, and none of them survives an event that damages the equipment.

Which Rules Apply to Your Equipment

The quickest way to build a schedule is to sort your asset list by hazard rather than by department.

Lifting Equipment

Anything that lifts or lowers a load falls under LOLER, along with the slings, chains and hooks that go with it. The intervals are fixed rather than risk-based, which makes this the easiest group to get right and the most obvious when it goes wrong. We set out the detail in our guide to how often LOLER inspections should be carried out.

General Work Equipment

Almost everything else you use at work is caught by PUWER, from hand tools to fixed machinery. There is no set cycle here, and the interval comes from a risk assessment weighing how hard the equipment works and what happens if it fails. Our post on how often equipment is checked under PUWER explains how to set an interval that stands up.

Pressure Systems

Compressors, air receivers, steam plant and refrigeration systems fall under PSSR. Rather than a national interval, the timing comes from a written scheme of examination drawn up by a competent person, which must be in place before the system is used. Our PSSR examinations cover both the scheme and the examinations that follow it.

Extraction and Ventilation

Dust and fume extraction is governed by COSHH rather than PUWER, and it carries one of the firmest deadlines: a thorough examination and test at least every 14 months, with far shorter intervals for higher risk work. That 14 months is a legal maximum, not a target, and our LEV examinations work to the interval the risk actually justifies.

Work at Height Equipment

Harnesses, lanyards and other personal fall protection need checking before every use and formally inspecting at least every 6 months. Working platforms used in construction have their own 7 day rule, which surprises businesses that treat scaffolding as a fixture rather than equipment.

Pre-Use Checks Sit on Top of All of This

None of the intervals above replace the quick checks your team should be doing anyway. A statutory examination confirms the equipment was safe on the day it was examined, which is a different thing from being safe this morning.

Operators spotting damage, leaks or odd noises between examinations is how most developing faults get caught. As the HSE's guidance on inspecting work equipment makes clear, inspection is about managing risk over time rather than clearing a single date.

Building a Schedule That Holds Up

The practical approach is to list every piece of equipment, mark which regulation catches it, and record the required interval alongside the last date it was done. That one exercise usually surfaces two or three items nobody had accounted for.

Then bring dates forward when something changes. New equipment, a relocation, a modification, a repair or an incident all reset the clock, whatever the calendar says. Hired-in equipment needs the same treatment as your own, since the interval follows the machine rather than the owner.

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The Bottom Line

How often workplace equipment should be inspected depends entirely on what the equipment is. Lifting kit runs to 6 or 12 months, extraction to 14 months at the outside, pressure systems to their written scheme, and general work equipment to whatever the risk justifies.

Sort the asset list by hazard first, apply the right interval to each group, and keep the routine checks running in between. Our thorough examination services cover the statutory side across all of these, but the schedule itself starts with knowing which rule applies to which machine.