Hi, New Member - PAT Question

Hi all, not an electrician of any sort, just looking for some expert advice on PAT testing equipment.

We want to carry out this ourselves in-house and looking for advice on a machine that will cater for all our needs.  

1. Budget upto £500

2. Is it a requirement that someone has to do a course before carrying out the test? I have seen an online course, again if someone has any recommendations that would be appreciated.

3. We are a typical office/warehousing operation, PC's, printers, kitchen equipment

Thank you

MrReference said:

Is it a requirement that someone has to do a course before carrying out the test?

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Judging by the fact that it seems that no-one there has any idea what machine to purchase/use then I can't see how you couldn't. You might as well just get yourself a roll of pass labels and stick them on all the machines for all the good just buying a tester will do you at this point. You need some competent to operate it.

I don't see how you can assign a budget to a task when you don't even know what it is you want or what you need it to do. There are a few threads on appliance testers here, read those.

How many actual appliances are you looking to test, at what frequency? All single phase, all 230V?

I'd be very careful about rushing into this, it would appear you have very little understanding of what you are dealing with here, In law there is no requirement to carry out testing, however should something go wrong then you could be on a sticky wicket if you had not tested the equipment.

That said, allowing someone to carry out testing who isn't competent can be just as bad, in the event of something going wrong, both the person doing the testing, and the person who appointed them as tester could end up in court.

It's not as simple as plugging a meter in and pressing a button, most of the test if done properly doesn't actually involve the tester at all, it's about inspection, and knowing what to look for.

Recently I was working at a premise that carries out it's own testing and I found 2 pieces of equipment that were unsafe, yet they both had pass stickers on them, yes they passed the meter test but shouldn't have passed the visual inspection. why then did they pass? Simple because the guy doing the tests didn't know how to do them properly, he'd simply plug them into the machine and if he got a pass on the screen it was good to go as far as he was concerned.

Unfortunately if someone had been hurt it would have been him that would have had to stand up in court and justify why he put a "pass" sticker on what was obviously a faulty and potentially dangerous piece of kit.  

Lurch, the reason I asked about a course is that whilst we were researching for testing kits, we came across this product and training course, obviously a lot cheaper than £500 which is why be put a budget at £500.

https://www.tester.co.uk/testsafe-minipat-appliance-tester?fee=3&fep=8409&gclid=CJDP08zdntQCFRG6GwodahgOjA

https://www.tester.co.uk/pat-testing-training-dvd-with-online-exam-and-certificate

We don't want to buy cheap as sometimes you get what you pay for, which is why I decided to come on here and ask for advice before making any decisions.

We have bright competent people here to take the course that I provided in the link above and it doesn't indicate that you should be a qualified electrician.

Just telling us to put pass stickers on equipment is not a very good response, even if it was meant to be sarcastic.

I will search for appliance testers and see what other users suggest.

Talk Electrician Forum - The UK's Friendliest Electrical Forum - Hmmn, not so friendly at the moment

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Phil, thank you for your information, we will bear all that in mind, we are certainly not going to rush into this and will take your comments on board.

I asked for some clarifications and suggested further reading.

The overall gist was that you can't decided on a machine/budget with no idea what it is you are doing, and no-one can advise you on what to get/do as we don't know what you want, and you can't tell us because you don't know, so then we go round in circles. You decided to ignore the questions raised and just start complaining, so really I should just say why bother, another ignorant moron on the internet doing the old "this isn't the answer I want so you must be a Fennel".

The actual answer to your questions specifically are;

1. Buy whatever you want, you get the same results from a £100 tester as you do from a £1,000 tester. It's the person doing the tests that ultimately makes the decision on whether the appliance passes or not, the tester is simply a convenient tool for the job. You don't even need an appliance tester, some basic test equipment that most of us have in our van is all you actually need, it's just more of a manual process.

2. Yes, although see above answer and also @phil d's answer. There's more to it than 'press button, place sticker on appliance', and there's also the liability and insurance.

3. As in my first reply - How many actual appliances are you looking to test, at what frequency? All single phase, all 230V? "We are a typical office/warehousing operation, PC's, printers, kitchen equipment" means nothing.

There's no requirement specifically that says you have to do a course, but there is a requirement under law (the electricity at work regulations 1989) that anyone working with electricity (whether paid or otherwise) must be 'competent', and most people would struggle to argue their competence if they haven't had any sort of formal training.

As Phil said earlier the first, and arguably most important part of the process is a visual inspection of the plug, lead and the appliance itself.  You're looking for things like incorrect fuse size, loose terminals, frayed flex, damage to insulation etc which may compromise the integrity and safety of the appliance and give rise to danger.

The tester will measure the resistance of the earth path between any exposed earthed metallic part of the casing and the earth pin on the plug if it is of class 1 construction, then test the resistance of the insulation.  Obviously you will need to know how to identify the class of the appliance being tested.

Generally speaking more expensive testers offer additional features like internal memory, barcode scanning, even label printing, which make it easier to reference test results with those from previous tests.

If you watch someone doing PAT testing (or more accurately In-Service Inspection & Testing of Electrical Equipment) all they will appear to do is to have a look at the appliance, maybe open up the plug and have a look in that, then plug the appliance into a tester, push a few buttons and stick a sticker on the appliance.  As hopefully I've outlined there is more to the test than simply knowing which buttons to press, such as knowing what it is you're looking for and being able to understand and interpret the results which the tester gives you.  However bright and well intentioned the person entrusted with the responsibility of doing the testing is, there is very little value in a sticker which tells you a potentially unsafe appliance is in fact safe to use.

phil d said:

Recently I was working at a premise that carries out it's own testing and I found 2 pieces of equipment that were unsafe, yet they both had pass stickers on them, yes they passed the meter test but shouldn't have passed the visual inspection. why then did they pass? Simple because the guy doing the tests didn't know how to do them properly, he'd simply plug them into the machine and if he got a pass on the screen it was good to go as far as he was concerned.

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The problem is Phil, would it have been any different if they had got a PAT testing firm in to all it all. Would they guy they sent actually have much more knowledge about what he was doing than the chap who got PAT added to his list of responsibilities?

I've seen dodgy stuff passed by both groups, often chinese lettuced :innocent

Phoenix said:

The problem is Phil, would it have been any different if they had got a PAT testing firm in to all it all. Would they guy they sent actually have much more knowledge about what he was doing than the chap who got PAT added to his list of responsibilities?

I've seen dodgy stuff passed by both groups, often chinese lettuced :innocent

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Maybe, maybe not, but I was thinking from a legal point, surely if you don't know what you are doing then it has to be better to employ someone who does, at least if it all goes wrong then it keeps you out of the smelly stuff.

If mr diy connects a shower and electrocutes his wife then he's the one in court, now if he employs an electrician and his wife gets killed then it's the electrician in court, the diy'er did all he could by employing the services of an allegedly competant/qualified person.

Same with PAT, the guy in my case had tried to save a few quid by buying a machine and doing it himself, now if as a result of his failings someone were to be hurt or even killed, then he'd have real problems. Potentially his insurance could be invalid for a start, we've all seen insurance companies look for a way out in the event of a big claim, for the sake of trying to save a few quid a year, which lets be honest could be offset against the businesses tax,he could potentially lose everything.People don't often look at the bigger picture when trying to save money, it's only when it all goes wrong that they realise the trouble they are in.