Specialist services
Hazardous area inspections
Understand the condition of your equipment, prioritise remedial work and keep a traceable inspection record.
- Typical engagement
- 3 days to 8 weeks
- Where it applies
- Zoned areas across process industry
- You receive
- An inspection register and a prioritised remedial list
- Working to
- BS EN 60079-17 · CompEx
A traceable picture of every Ex item on site
An Ex installation is only as good as the last time somebody looked at it. Gaskets perish, glands work loose, a cover goes back on with two bolts instead of six, and none of it announces itself. Inspection to BS EN 60079-17 is what turns that into something you can see and plan around.
The standard sets three grades of inspection and three types of programme. An initial inspection proves a new or modified installation. A periodic inspection keeps the picture current. Sample inspection covers part of a population to judge whether the whole population is behaving. Which mix suits your site depends on the equipment, the environment and what your last set of results looked like.
Records matter because DSEAR Regulation 6 asks you to maintain the controls you rely on, and an inspector will ask to see the evidence. A register that says only "pass" does not show maintenance; a register that names the item, the defect and what was done about it does.
Every inspection is carried out by CompEx-certified engineers. That is not a badge on a letterhead: the difference between a close and a detailed inspection is a judgement about what you are allowed to open and what you are looking at when you do.
Inspection grades
- Visual — defects visible without tools or access equipment.
- Close — the same, plus defects visible with access equipment and a torch.
- Detailed — the item opened where necessary, with tools, to see inside.
What we record
For every item: the tag number, the protection concept and full Ex marking, the zone it sits in, the grade of inspection carried out, its condition, any defect with its category, and a photograph referenced against the entry. The photograph is what makes a defect arguable six months later.
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.