As with your car or your home, regular maintenance of lifts and lifting equipment is essential to ensure the smooth operation of your equipment and to prevent accidents or inconvenience. Just like your car, correctly maintaining a lift is an integral part of having one, and owners/operators have certain obligations to fulfil to stay compliant with employment and health and safety laws.
Here at The Chiltern Lift Company we recommend an ongoing programme of periodic lift maintenance to prevent small issues turning into even bigger ones. Our team of experienced engineers live and breathe lifts and lifting equipment and throughout the year inspect, repair and upgrade hundreds of different types of lifts. Based on this experience and knowledge we recommend having your lifts checked at the intervals below to catch any problems early. Not only that, but the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) specifically states that operators of work equipment (which includes lifts) ‘ensure work equipment is maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair’. So owners/operators in fact have a legal obligation to keep their lifts in good working order.
Recommended lift servicing intervals:
- Passenger Lift; serviced quarterly
- Goods Lift, serviced quarterly
- Service Lift; serviced bi-annually
- Stairlift; annually or bi-annually, depending on usage
- Platform Lift; annually or bi-annually, depending on usage
When it is time for your lift service there are a number of checks that we would normally conduct that we have listed below. The exact nature and frequency of checks will depend on your own situation, so these are just guidelines. For advice specific to your own situation it’s best to give us a call.
- Inspection of the lift and the submission of reports wherever necessary
- Cleaning, oiling and adjusting the lift
- Check of alarm or autodial, car lighting including bulbs to car and all indicator devices, emergency lighting, etc.
- Service of guide rails and, if required, advise to renew guide shoes to ensure the smoother and quiet operation of the lift
- Examination of all safety devices or governor devices, plus examination and equalisation of tensions of all hoisting ropes
Through regular servicing you can have confidence that any foreseeable faults will be spotted before any lasting damage is allowed to happen. As part of an inspection our engineers will also notify you of any issues that don’t need immediate attention but could lead to problems in the future, and also any recommendations relating to EN 81-80 (more details on our lift testing page).
To discuss your requirements just give us a call or submit and enquiry today and one of our team would be happy to talk to you.