If you are a lift owner or a company installing and maintaining a new lift on behalf of a client, it’s essential to know your responsibilities for ensuring the equipment is safe to use. In this blog, we look at what you need to do to stay compliant and the preventative actions you can take to help ensure the safety of passengers and increase efficiency, leading to reduced risk and cost for your business.
Regular lift inspections
Any new lift must be manufactured and installed in accordance with the Lift Regulations 2016. If there are circumstances under which some of the requirements cannot be met, you must hold a derogation from a notified body to confirm the lift is safe to operate. Following installation, regular inspections should be carried out to check the safety of your equipment. These can be done in-house by a trained member of staff or an external company.
More thorough examinations are a mandatory requirement that involve a detailed and systematic assessment of your equipment by a competent person. This can also include some testing if required. For passenger lifts thorough examinations must be carried out either:
- once every six months
- following significant changes or repairs
- under exceptional circumstances – e.g. after a long period out of use.
Performance monitoring
While testing is essential, regularly assessing the performance of your lift equipment is also worthwhile to help mitigate risks. Ride quality investigation analysis is a key tool to help you monitor the status of your equipment, identify and address any vulnerabilities or areas for performance improvement. Catching problems before they become serious not only helps ensure lift safety but can prevent costly breakdowns.
When you’re installing a new lift or escalator in a building, it’s essential you ensure it’s suitable for the proposed level of traffic. A lift that’s overused is more likely to provide a poor experience for the customer and can lead to more frequent and serious problems. A traffic analysis study looks at round-trip times, wait times and passenger capacity, so you can ensure your lift is fit for purpose. This isn’t just a requirement at the installation stage of a project. It can often be the case that the purpose of a building will change, leading to changes in footfall, which can affect the performance and suitability of your lift or escalator.
The team at Elevating Safety Solutions are experts in lift and escalator compliance. Whether you need assistance ensuring your new lift project is compliant or are looking to assess the performance of existing equipment, we’re on hand to help.
Find out more about our lift compliance services.
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