Testing

General information

Employee protection provides, for example, that work equipment, electrical installations, articles of personal protective equipment and fire-detection or fire-fighting systems and equipment for rescuing persons from danger must be regularly tested to ensure they are in working condition.

The relevant testing intervals, the equipment to be checked and the persons permitted to carry out the checks are listed in the individual regulations of the ArbeitnehmerInnenschutzgesetz (ASchG). For example, the Arbeitsmittelverordnung (AM-VO) – alongside acceptance testing for certain work equipment and a test after installing work equipment – also stipulates that certain work equipment should be tested on a regular basis.

Work equipment

The following work equipment must be tested on a regular basis, at least once per calendar year but at a maximum interval of 15 months. For the firsts eight types of work equipment, maintenance logs must also be kept. These maintenance logs must include all maintenance carried out plus the parts of the work equipment that were maintained.

• Cranes including loading cranes on vehicles, railbound mobile cranes and non-railbound mobile cranes
• Other power-driven work equipment for lifting loads, winches and towing equipment
• Rack feeders guided by mechanical or electronic guidance/control systems
• Excavators and wheel loaders for lifting single loads
• Load-bearing equipment and lifting tackle for loads or work cages
• Self-driving work equipment, apart from vehicles for which there is an inspection obligation as per the Kraftfahrgesetz
• Work equipment for lifting employees or loads and employees
• Goods cable lifts to which the Seilbahngesetz does not apply
• Work cages
• Lifting platforms solely for transporting goods
• Vehicle lifts
• Tail lifts on vehicles
• Power-driven adjustable ramps
• Power-driven doors, including those on vehicles
• Doors that open upwards with a door leaf area of more than 10 m²
• Forklift trucks with driver’s platform
• Inspection and rescue equipment
• Mechanical ladders
• Continuous conveyors apart from conveyor belts and roller conveyors under 5 m conveying distance
• Firing systems for liquid and gaseous fuels with more than 30 kW of nominal heat output
• Power-driven presses, punches and injection-moulding machines with manual loading or unloading
• Nail guns
• Movable suspended scaffolding
• Conveying systems for underground mining work (for example, shaft access systems, inclined elevators)
• Mechanical propulsion devices for underground mining work (for example, milling machines, rock-breaking machines)
• Other equipment and systems for underground mining work on which employees are transported or from which work is carried out
• Placing booms

Test results

The test results (for various types of tests) must be retained by the employer until the work equipment has been withdrawn from use.

At the location at which the work equipment is used, test results or copies of the most recent acceptance test, the repeat tests and the tests after installation must be kept available.

Electrical installation

The checking of electrical installations is regulated in the Elektroschutzverordnung, in which the following is laid down, for example:

• If the testing interval for electrical installations is more than three years, the results of the latest test must be stored in the place of employment or on the construction site.
• For shorter inspection intervals, the results of the last two checks must be stored in the place of employment or on the construction site.
• For non-occupied installations, it must be possible to view the test results at the office designated for this installation.

Enterprises affected

Essentially all establishments, apart from agricultural and forestry establishments, administrative departments and federal, province and municipal schools as well as private households

Competent authority

The locally competent labour inspectorate (Arbeitsinspektion → BMAW) ^{German text}

Legal bases

• ArbeitnehmerInnenschutzgesetz
• Sections 8, 11, 16 of the Arbeitsmittelverordnung (AM-VO)
• Section 11 of the Elektroschutzverordnung (ESV)
• Sections 14, 15 of the Verordnung persönliche Schutzausrüstung (PSA-V)

Expert information

Inspection obligations (Arbeitsinspektion → BMAW)^{German text}