Once a year, somebody who does not work for you walks the site and writes down what they find. Connecticut's version, under RCSA 22a-449(d)-103(c), is a qualified technician who is an independent third party, working a four-part form, and the first thing on that form is a review of your own last twelve monthly inspections.
Jurisdiction note. The specifics here are Connecticut's. The federal rule has no equivalent third-party annual inspection requirement, so this is an example of a state program going well beyond the floor. If you operate elsewhere, check whether yours does the same.
Independent is the operative word
The requirement is a qualified technician who is an independent third party. Not a contractor you employ, and not the person who signs your monthly inspections.
The reason becomes clear the moment you read the first line item on the checklist: reports for the previous 12 months reviewed and found adequate. The annual inspection audits the monthly ones. Having the same person do both would be asking somebody to mark their own work, and a year of missing monthlies would go unrecorded by exactly the person who did not do them.
It also changes what the annual visit is for. It is not another walk round to find loose caps. It is an outside opinion on whether your compliance routine is real.
The 90-day window off your own anniversary
The deadline is unusual and worth reading twice. The annual inspection must occur within 90 days of the one-year anniversary date of the previously completed annual inspection report.
Two things follow. The clock runs from your previous report rather than from a calendar year, so every site has its own anniversary and a multi-site operator has as many anniversaries as sites. And 90 days is a window, not a grace period bolted onto a fixed date, which means the anniversary drifts if you keep using the late end of the window.
A site inspected in March one year, late June the next, and late September the year after has stayed inside the rule each time and moved its anniversary six months in two cycles. Nothing is wrong with that, but a schedule that assumes March forever will be wrong by the third year.
What the technician looks at
The form runs category by category and tank by tank, pass, fail or N/A on each. Where the monthly inspection is largely a visual walk, the annual goes into the equipment.
The ATG manhole gets its own block: cover and cap in good condition and sealing tightly, the hole sealed where the probe wire passes through, wire splices sealed and wire in good condition, the junction box covered and free of corrosion with intrinsically safe wiring and no exposed conductors, probe and floats in good condition with floats present and moving freely, functionality of the probes verified with a test date recorded, and adequate clearance between the grade-level cover and the components below it.
That level of detail is the difference between the two inspections. A Class B operator confirms the spill bucket is dry. The annual technician takes the lid off the junction box.
All four parts, or it does not count
Connecticut says plainly that all four parts of the checklist have to be completed for it to be considered a complete report. Facility identification, the inspection items, the repair and maintenance notes, and the inspection details with the signature.
An incomplete form is a common finding, and it is the cheapest one to avoid. Where equipment is not present at the site, the state's instruction is to mark it N/A rather than leaving it blank. A blank line reads as an item nobody looked at, and there is no way to tell the difference afterwards.
Same rule as the monthly form applies to failures: anything not in compliance obliges corrective action, the report has to note what has been or will be done, and where the work will take more than 30 days from discovery, the report has to say why.
What to have ready before they arrive
The technician is going to ask for the previous twelve monthly reports, because reviewing them is the first line of their own form. Everything else on the site they can see for themselves.
So the annual inspection is, in practice, an audit of your record keeping with an equipment inspection attached. A site with twelve signed monthly reports and its test certificates to hand takes an afternoon. A site that has to reconstruct the year takes longer and produces findings that have nothing to do with the tanks.
How FastDragon handles it
The annual inspection sits on the calendar per site with its date computed from the previous completed report rather than from a fixed month, which is what the anniversary rule actually asks for. The 90-day window is the window, so a site is not shown as late on day one.
The twelve monthly reports the technician will ask for are one query against the site, with the photographs attached where they were taken. Producing a year of history for somebody standing in the forecourt is the thing this is for.
Common questions
Who can perform the annual inspection?
In Connecticut, a qualified technician who is an independent third party. RCSA 22a-449(d)-103(c) uses that wording, and independent is doing real work in it. The person who runs your monthly inspections cannot sign the annual one, because the annual inspection includes reviewing the previous twelve months of monthly reports and finding them adequate.
What is the deadline, exactly?
Connecticut's form says the annual inspection must occur within 90 days of the one-year anniversary date of the previously completed annual inspection report. That is a window rather than a date, and it runs from the previous report rather than from a calendar year, so the anniversary moves with your own history.
Does the annual inspection replace my monthly ones?
No. It audits them. The first line item on Connecticut's annual checklist is that the reports for the previous 12 months have been reviewed and found adequate. Twelve monthly inspections that were never done becomes a finding on the annual report, written by somebody independent.
How long are annual inspection reports kept?
Connecticut requires them maintained on-site for no less than three years, the same as the monthly reports. All four parts of the checklist have to be completed for it to count as a complete report.
What if equipment on the checklist is not at my site?
Mark it N/A. The state's form says so directly, for items where certain equipment is not present at the facility. Leaving a line blank is different from marking it not applicable, and a blank reads as an item nobody looked at.