A hoist is bought once and operated for twenty years.
Over the life of a chain hoist, balancer or manipulator there is more work than in buying it: inspecting, maintaining, repairing and eventually upgrading. This page collects what there is to know.
- Technical terms
- 12
- Guides
- 5
- Calculators
- 1
Inspection and maintenance are two different things. The periodic inspection establishes whether equipment is safe; in Germany the operator sets its interval in the risk assessment, and it is carried out by a competent person. Maintenance preserves the condition: lubricating, adjusting and replacing wear parts before they fail.
In between lie the questions that are actually asked on the shop floor. When has a chain reached its discard criteria? How much of the theoretical service life has been used? Is repair still worthwhile, or is an upgrade the better route – and does the modification turn the equipment into a new machine?
Each of these terms has its own page below. The calculator estimates, by the method of FEM 9.755, how much service life a hoist has already consumed.
What we do in this field
Lifting Equipment Maintenance
Planned maintenance of chain hoists, wire rope hoists, balancers and manipulators – any make.
View serviceLifting Equipment Inspection
Recurring inspection under German BetrSichV and DGUV rules – chain hoists, rope hoists, balancers, manipulators and jib cranes.
View serviceRepair & Overhaul
Repair of lifting equipment and manipulators of any make – from a brake change to a full overhaul.
View serviceUpgrades & Modification
Adapting existing lifting equipment to a new task – gripper, control, reach, capacity.
View serviceStatutory Inspections
Recurring inspection of your equipment to German accident prevention regulations.
View serviceThe questions, answered in full
Inspection of lifting equipment
Once a year. And in the log, or it did not happen.
Read the articleSetting the maintenance interval
Once a year is an inspection interval, not a maintenance plan.
Read the articleInspecting lifting attachments
The device is inspected. The gripper usually is not.
Read the articleUpgrade or replace
The most expensive part of a new unit is rarely the new unit.
Read the articleServicing other makes
A shop that has grown holds equipment from three decades.
Read the articleOn site in your region
Ruhr area
Between Duisburg and Hamm, hoists work in steel plants, chemical parks and logistics halls – three environments that stress equipment very differently...
View region Field of useMünsterland
Münsterland is the land of medium-sized companies: machine builders, food processors, plastics firms – often with a handful of hoists that nobody look...
View region Field of useEast Westphalia-Lippe
Furniture, machinery, electrical engineering: in East Westphalia-Lippe large, flat and delicate parts are moved. That shapes the equipment – and what...
View region Field of useSauerland and South Westphalia
South Westphalia is one of the densest industrial regions in the country: metal processors and suppliers, many of them working in several shifts. A ho...
View region Field of useRhineland
Along the Rhine, chemical sites, vehicle manufacturing and machine building lie close together. For a hoist that means strict requirements for documen...
View regionEvery term, explained individually
12 Terms- Competent person
- The person permitted to inspect a work equipment item. TRBS 1203 requires suitable vocational training, practical experience with...
- Crane logbook
- The record of all inspections of a crane, kept with the installation and required by DGUV rule 52. It records the date, the inspec...
- DGUV Regulation 52
- The German accident prevention regulation for cranes. It governs construction, equipment, operation and inspection – including per...
- Discard criteria
- The condition in which a load-bearing medium has to be replaced – regardless of whether it still carries. On round steel chains th...
- Inspection interval
- The period between two recurring inspections. It is not a fixed figure from a table but is set by the operator under section 3 of...
- Load chain
- The round steel chain a chain hoist lifts with. It wears in two places at once: the nominal diameter reduces at the contact point...
- Load hook
- The component the load hangs from, standardised in DIN 15400 and DIN 15401. Its most important discard criterion is the opening of...
- Maintenance management
- The umbrella term for everything that keeps a work equipment item functional. DIN 31051 divides it into four basic measures: servi...
- Recurring inspection
- The recurring inspection of lifting equipment and slings by a competent person – as a rule annually. It has to be documented in th...
- Retrofit
- Adapting existing equipment to a changed task or to current technology instead of replacing it. Typical cases are a new load attac...
- Substantial modification
- A modification that legally turns the operator into a manufacturer – with risk assessment, conformity assessment, operating instru...
- Theoretical service life
- The calculated operating life of a serial hoist up to a general overhaul, determined under FEM 9.755 from operating hours and load...
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