Somewhere in the life of every elevating work platform there is an inspection that goes far deeper than the routine and periodic checks the machine sees along the way. It is the point where a competent person takes the unit apart far enough to examine the structure and the systems that ordinary servicing never exposes, then decides in writing whether it is fit to keep working. Owners often call this the five-year, but that shorthand hides an important detail: the interval is 5-year or 10-year depending on the equipment class, counted from manufacture, and treating it as a flat five-year rule for everything is simply wrong. This article is general information and not legal advice; it sets out, step by step, what the major inspection involves so you know what you are booking and what a genuine certification actually rests on.
Booking the inspection and getting the machine ready
The process starts before a spanner is lifted. A competent person needs the machine's identity confirmed — make, model and serial — its build date, and its history: the manual, the log of routine and periodic checks, prior inspection reports and any record of repairs or modifications. The build date matters because it fixes where the machine sits against its major-inspection interval, which is 5-year or 10-year depending on the class, and the history tells the inspector what has already been found and fixed.
Preparing the unit is mostly practical. It needs to be clean enough for the structure to be seen, drained or made safe where required, and available for the length of time the work takes rather than squeezed between jobs. A machine that arrives caked in grease and grime hides the very things the inspection exists to find, so cleaning down is not cosmetic — it is part of making a genuine examination possible.
Strip-down and visual examination
The major inspection earns its name by going where routine servicing does not. Guards, covers and access panels come off, pins are drawn where needed, and the boom sections, turntable, chassis and platform mounts are opened up so the structure itself can be examined rather than the paint over it. The inspector is looking for corrosion, distortion, wear at pivots and bushes, elongated holes, damaged welds and any past repair that was never recorded.
This is deliberate and unhurried work. Much of what threatens an access platform hides beneath coatings, grease and covers, so the strip-down is the part of the job that turns hidden condition into something a person can actually see and judge. Nothing that follows means much if the machine has not first been opened up properly.
Crack testing and load verification
Once the structure is exposed, the critical welds and stress-concentrating areas — weld toes, boom pivots, section changes and load-path members — are checked for cracking using non-destructive testing. NDT is how a competent person finds fatigue cracking that has not yet broken the surface or is too fine to see, which is precisely the kind of flaw a walk-around can never catch. The technique chosen suits the material and the location, and the findings are recorded against each area examined.
The machine's ability to carry and hold its rated load is also verified, along with the devices that keep it stable and prevent overload. This is done in a controlled, qualitative way — confirming that the structure carries load without distress, that the platform holds where it is set rather than creeping down, and that the safety functions respond as intended. The point is to confirm the load path and the holding systems behave correctly, not to chase a number.
Electrical testing for insulated units, and the working systems
If the platform is an insulated type — built to work on or near live electrical apparatus — it carries an additional electrical test that an ordinary machine does not. That test confirms the dielectric integrity of the insulating parts of the boom and liner qualitatively; a unit that cannot demonstrate current, valid electrical testing must be treated as uninsulated regardless of how it was originally built. This guide keeps the electrical detail brief because a separate article covers it in full.
The rest of the working systems are then put through their paces. Hydraulics are checked for leaks, hose condition and cylinders that hold rather than drift; the controls are exercised at both platform and ground stations, including the emergency lowering and stop functions; and the interlocks, alarms and level or overload sensing are confirmed to operate. These functional checks confirm that what the structure can do safely, the controls will actually let it do.
Repairs, the final report and keeping records
Findings do not certify themselves. Where the inspection turns up cracking, wear beyond limits, failed components or a system that does not perform, those are rectified — by repair or replacement to the manufacturer's specification and, where the structure is involved, under proper engineering — and then re-checked. A machine is not certified because it was inspected; it is certified because what the inspection found has been put right and verified.
The inspection closes with a written report: what was examined, what was found, what was done, and a clear statement of whether the machine is fit to return to service. That report, together with the tag or plate on the machine and the ongoing log of routine and periodic checks, is the evidence that the major inspection was done and passed. Frequency of the everyday servicing that follows is set by the manufacturer's manual, the machine's duty cycle, its operating environment and its condition rather than by any fixed calendar — but the next major inspection interval, again 5-year or 10-year depending on the class, is fixed and worth diarising well ahead. As an independent inspection and engineering specialist, EWP Australia can carry out and certify this work on request — call 0416 689 689.
This guide is general information prepared by EWP Australia and is grounded in publicly available Australian Standards and Safe Work Australia material. It is not a substitute for the current published edition of the relevant standard or for site-specific engineering advice. Always work from the current standard and consult a competent person for your specific equipment and application.