Scissor lifts are a vital piece of warehouse equipment, used in various industries including construction, retail and manufacturing, along with facility maintenance and event setup. They can be found everywhere from purpose-built industrial settings to public sector sites like schools and hospitals. With their widespread use and the potential for injury in their application, it’s important to understand the value of proper and regular scissor lift maintenance. 

This piece is going to dig into a scissor lift maintenance checklist, touching on what the average warehouse worker can do, along with what you should expect from a professional service. 

Scissor lift maintenance you can perform yourself

Warehouse handling staff should understand how to do some basic scissor lift checks and maintenance to help things stay functional, or at least identify potential problems early on.

The kinds of daily inspections that every staff member should be adept at include: 

• Checking for any leaks, damage or visible wear on crucial components of the scissor lift. 
• Making sure that all safety decals are totally legible.
• Ensuring that every emergency safety control is fully functional. 
• Checking that every gate and safety guard is steady and closes properly. 

When it comes to more active maintenance tasks, at least some people in the warehouse should be capable of completing a few jobs every 90 days or so, such as: 

• Lubricating any moving parts such as bearings, hinges and slide rails.
• Checking the fluid levels, inspecting any hydraulic hoses and fittings for leaks and replacing filters when they’re spent.

However, scissor lift maintenance can of course be tricky, especially in the case of powered or electric lifts. That’s why it’s also important to purchase your lifts from a company that offers a comprehensive scissor lift service. 

Scissor lift maintenance checklist for professional servicing

When you bring in professional servicing, you need to know that they’re doing a comprehensive job that will leave your scissor lift fully functional. Before any sort of scissor lift repair is enacted, it’s important to book in some Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM), which will include tasks like: 

• Electrical inspections that check on the wiring, connections and other internal electronic components.
• Load testing the lift to see how stable it is and if it’s safe to carry it’s intended capacity. 
• Scissor lift battery maintenance like cleaning any ports, charging/replacing the batteries and topping up wet ones with extra water.

Professional maintenance services can also complete all the checks that you might want to complete yourself if need be. It’s also worth noting that a good maintenance team will also be able to offer a scissor lift repair or even refurbishment service. This will involve fixing or replacing any damaged elements of the lift. Common repair/refurb tasks include: 

• Replacing worn or damaged parts
• Total strip down
• Structural repairs
• Shot blasting
• Re-paint
• Complete re-wire
• New safety edges
• New or re-sealing of hydraulic rams
• LOLER certificate
• Weight test
• Warranties
• Commission to leave unit in good working order

With expert engineers completing these tasks, you can feel confident that your business won’t suffer from significant downtime. Remember, any maintenance needs to be recorded in documentation – this helps to cover your back in case of any freak accidents or malfunctions. 

Reasons for regular scissor lift maintenance 

Scissor lift repairs and maintenance aren’t just something you do for the sake of it – they’re essential facets of proper warehouse control. Over time, environmental factors like dust, dirt, moisture and temperature changes can get to scissor lifts, as can general wear and tear. You never want to find out something is malfunctioning because of an injury, so it’s important to get there in advance. This will save you money in terms of worker’s compensation, along with full-blown replacements.

It’s also important to keep everything above board in terms of legal regulations, otherwise, you risk serious fines or even criminal charges. Make sure to purchase your scissor lifts from a suitable supplier that offers full maintenance – original manufacturers are always your safest bet.