I have pondered the idea of doing annual inspections as only the rental companies around here do them. I had a customer ask me this morning about doing them. I told him was not certified to do them but if him and a few more customer would get them done I wouldn't mind getting certified. Now for the big question. Would my general liability insurance $1,000,000 be enough or should I get something else. Also any other things I should consider?
You are talking DOT truck inspections, right?
Inspections of what? Are we talking DOT or offroad equipment? Certified by who? I do my own DOT annual inspections. My experience more than qualifies me according to the FMCSA.
Not dot I should have mentioned arial equipment
I wouldn't think I could just say yep I do them and inspect them. Seems like I would have to have the proper paper work qualifying me to do them
I've looked into this also. What the local rental yards do around here is send their mechanics to a 1-2 day Genie or JLG class and that qualifies them. Having dealt with a few of these guys I can tell you I know a whole lot more about these machines than they do. But they have a piece of paper. Also, should something bad happen and I was on the hot seat with a fancy lawyer firing questions at me, it probably would not matter, I could have built the machine and he would make a fool out of me. So I say, check with your insurance, if you can get to a class great, be a bit careful of who you deal with and go for it.
The key to inspections is documentation and record keeping. The mechanic has to be thorough in filling out those forms and making sure that what is on there is done to specification. The real important person is the one who keeps those records. It's not the attorneys that you would have to worry about. Its the government bureaucrats using you to cover their butts. Attorneys would use your experience to go after the people that have the money.
RE:Annual Insp As a technician for a rental company we do annual inspections on our scissor lifts. I was fortunate to work with our scissor lift guy for 2 weeks learning them. Before I did an inspection. If you are unable to attend a factory course JLG & Genie offer correspondence courses covering their equipment. Some courses are prerequisites to factory training. And new scissor will come with a blank inspection sheet as well. But you do have to keep records current.
I am able to carry out annual inspections on genie,JLG,skyjack,snorkel and haulotte(scissor lifts). I can tell you what's involved with both inspection minimum requirements and shop manuals. AI's aren't to hard on anything under 60ft, over that they become very labor intensive if you do them correctly. Of course like some ppl I know you can just tick the box and move on but if anything happens your ass is gone. Thanks