Fall Protection Equipment Inspection — What to Check Before Every Use

Fall protection gear fails quietly. A harness doesn't usually look dramatically broken right before it fails — the damage is almost always smaller than that, and easy to miss without a deliberate check across every component.

Webbing

The straps themselves. Check for UV damage and discoloration, mildew or rotting, cuts, frays, or abrasion, contact with chemicals or solvents, contact with grease, oil, or paint, general soiling, and any evidence of heat damage — friction burns, welding splatter, or scorch marks.

D-rings, buckles, and snap hooks

Every piece of hardware needs its own check: damage, distortion or grooving, sharp edges or cracks, and corrosion. Buckles specifically need their springs tested — sticky springs are a common, easy-to-miss failure. Snap hooks need their two-action opening mechanism and locking action confirmed functional, not just visually intact.

Stitching

Three things: fully stitched with no gaps, backstitch present where it's supposed to be, and no pulled or cut stitches anywhere on the harness. Stitching failure is one of the least visually dramatic but most structurally serious issues — a few pulled threads can mean the difference between a harness holding and not.

"Loss of faith" is a real category

Fall protection standards recognize a category beyond simple pass/fail: a component that hasn't visibly failed but has lost the inspector's confidence — after a fall, contact with a harmful substance, or damage from an unusual event like being run over. When in doubt, the equipment comes out of service. There's no partial credit on fall protection gear.

Lanyards and lifelines

The connection between the harness and the anchor point needs the same rigor: correct markings and labels, no cuts, burns, tears, or frays, no knots, no excessive soiling or chemical contact, and — for self-retracting lifelines — confirming the spring tension actually allows for both retraction and retention, and that the activation indicator hasn't already been deployed.

Labels and markings

Easy to skip, genuinely important: the manufacturer's markings need to be present, legible, and securely attached, and the in-service date needs to be checked — fall protection equipment has a real service life, and a harness past its date shouldn't still be in rotation regardless of how it looks.