Hazardous Area Inspections
ATEX & Hazardous Area Inspection Specialists
More than an inspection report. Milaco helps you identify hazardous area defects, understand the risks and take practical action to improve site safety and DSEAR compliance.
- OUR APPROACH
- More than an inspection. Support through to resolution.
- WHO WE SUPPORT
- From small businesses to upper-tier COMAH sites.
- WHAT WE DELIVER
- Clear findings, practical solutions and ongoing support.
- WORKING TO
- BS EN IEC 60079 set of standards and DSEAR
Compliance Should Be More Than a Tick-Box Exercise
A completed inspection register doesn't automatically mean an installation is safe.
We regularly encounter sites where non-conformances have accumulated over several inspection cycles. Some defects have been corrected but never formally closed. Others have been carried forward without sufficient technical review.
The result is a register that becomes increasingly difficult to manage and doesn't always reflect the true condition of the installation.
An effective inspection programme should identify genuine defects, support sound engineering decisions and help sites make measurable improvements.
Our aim isn't to produce more paperwork. It's to make the inspection useful.
The Right Support for Your Site
Not every company needs the same level of involvement.
For businesses with limited hazardous area experience, we can help establish equipment registers, develop periodic inspection programmes and manage findings through to completion.
For larger organisations with established engineering and process safety teams, we can provide additional inspection capacity, independent technical review, specialist advice and remedial support.
We work alongside your existing team, providing the level of assistance required without unnecessarily changing processes that already work.
The level of involvement changes depending on the client. The standard of work doesn't.
From Inspection Through to Resolution
Finding a defect is only part of the job. Understanding what it means and determining the correct action is where technical experience becomes important.
Our services cover the full process:
- Review and planning: Understanding your site, equipment and existing inspection records.
- Inspection and reporting: Competent inspections to BS EN IEC 60079-17, supported by technical review.
- Corrective works: Technical assessments, hazardous area electrical design support and remedial installation.
- Verification and ongoing support: Documenting completed work, updating registers and maintaining inspection programmes.
We don't simply issue a report and leave the client to work out what happens next.
Proven Experience in Hazardous Areas
Milaco brings together 20 years of hazardous area experience within the company, gained both onshore and offshore across gas, vapour and combustible dust environments.
Our experience spans power generation, chemical processing, utilities and food manufacturing, including working alongside major industrial operators.
That experience shapes how we inspect equipment, review findings and recommend corrective actions.
Good engineering practice shouldn't be reserved for the largest companies.
See Our Work
See how we support clients across different industries, from hazardous area inspections and technical assessments through to remedial works and ongoing compliance. Real projects, practical solutions and measurable improvements to site safety.
Power Generation: everything tagged Power GenerationBS EN 60079-17: everything tagged BS EN 60079-17
Carrington Power Station – GT26 Unit 2 ATEX Inspections
Milaco Engineering restructured the ATEX inspection programme at ESB Carrington Power Station, aligning inspections of its GT26 gas turbines with planned outages to improve equipment access, defect management and opportunities for remedial works.
How the work runs
From scope to a funded remedial plan.
Scope and schedule
Agree the population, the grades and the access windows, and align the programme to your shutdowns.
Inspect and record
Item by item, in area order, with the marking, condition and a photograph captured on the spot.
Grade and prioritise
Defects categorised as immediate, planned or monitor, and reviewed with your engineer each week.
Report and plan
A register you can maintain, a remedial programme you can fund, and the next inspection interval.
Your questions, answered.
A close inspection is everything a visual inspection finds, plus the defects you can only see with access equipment and a light — a cracked gland, a missing bolt, corrosion behind a bracket. Nothing is opened and nothing is de-energised. A detailed inspection goes further: the enclosure is opened where it is safe to do so, and the internals are checked — terminations, creepage and clearance distances, cable entry, the condition of the flamepath. Detailed inspection is where most of the serious findings come from.
For visual and close inspection, no. For detailed inspection, usually yes, because the enclosure has to be opened. We plan those around your outages rather than asking for a shutdown: the items needing isolation are identified during scoping and grouped by circuit, so one permit covers a sensible batch instead of one item at a time.
Yes, and we would rather. A register in your numbering is a register your team can use; a register in ours is one more system to reconcile. Where an item has no tag we agree a convention with your engineer and mark it on site. Where the existing register no longer matches the plant, we record what we find against your scheme and give you the differences as a separate list.
Client perspectives
Confidence, in their words.
Illustrative testimonials for local design review. These are not verified client statements.
Projects
Projects that delivered ATEX & Hazardous Area Inspection Specialists
Power Generation: everything tagged Power GenerationBS EN 60079-17: everything tagged BS EN 60079-17
Carrington Power Station – GT26 Unit 2 ATEX Inspections
Milaco Engineering restructured the ATEX inspection programme at ESB Carrington Power Station, aligning inspections of its GT26 gas turbines with planned outages to improve equipment access, defect management and opportunities for remedial works.
Testimonials
What clients say about ATEX & Hazardous Area Inspection Specialists
Milaco have proven to be invaluable partners in supporting DSEAR compliance at our power plant, providing reliable, high-quality ATEX services.
They are friendly, professional and have introduced practical improvements through the Milaco App, helping us manage ATEX documentation, our Explosion Protection Document (EPD), and defect tracking.