Height safety inspections
On-site inspection, or send your gear away?
An honest comparison, including the times sending it away is the better call. Most harness inspection in New Zealand is done by courier. We do it on your site. Here is the actual trade-off.
The short version
Sending gear away is cheaper per item and costs you time. Having us come to you costs a site visit fee and costs you nothing else. Which one wins depends almost entirely on how many items you have and whether your crew needs them next week.
Send it away
- Cheaper per item, usually by a few dollars
- You pay courier both ways, and that is on top
- The gear is gone for days, sometimes longer
- Somebody has to box it, send it, and chase it
- You are without that gear while it is away
- Fine if you have a handful of items and no deadline
We come to you
- $150 + GST for the visit, including travel. Your first one is free
- Nothing leaves your site
- Done in one visit, usually the same morning
- Your asset register is updated while we are standing there
- Failed items are tagged out in front of you, not posted back
- Worth it once you have more than a few items, or a deadline
What it actually costs
Our prices, and what a courier-based inspector typically charges in New Zealand. All figures exclude GST.
| Item | Fern Group | Typical send-away |
|---|---|---|
| Full body harness | $28 | $25 to $35, plus courier |
| Harness with integrated lanyard | $35 | $35, plus courier |
| Lanyard | $22 | $20, plus courier |
| SRL or inertia reel | $30 | $30, plus courier |
| Carabiner or connector | $15 | $10, plus courier |
| Coming to your site | $150, first visit free | Often not offered, or quoted on the day |
Send-away figures are the published rates of other New Zealand inspectors at October 2026, and courier is on top of them. Check current prices with any provider before you decide.
Where the break-even sits
Take ten harnesses. Sent away at $25 each that is $250, plus courier both ways, plus the time somebody spends packing and chasing, plus a week without them. With us it is $280 and a morning, and the first site visit is free, so on a first job it is $280 against $250 plus courier.
Take three harnesses and no deadline. Sent away that is $75 plus courier. With us it is $84 plus a site visit after the free one. If that is genuinely all you have, send them away. We would rather tell you that than take the job.
The number that usually decides it is not the per-item price. It is what it costs you to have gear off site, and how much of somebody's week goes into organising it.
What on-site gets you that a courier cannot
- Nothing leaves your control. No gear in a van, no gear lost, no gear sitting in a depot over a long weekend.
- One visit covers everything. Harnesses, lanyards, inertia reels, ladders, scaffold, eyewash stations and spill kits, all inspected on the same trip.
- Your register is live before we leave. Every item tagged and entered, with its next due date and a reminder set.
- You see the failures. We show you the defect and tag the item out in front of you, instead of a line on a report three days later.
- We spot the things nobody sent. Gear that would never have made it into a courier box, because nobody knew it was there.
Full price list · Harness and height safety inspections · What happens if an item fails