Just had the PAT tester come round the office.

If PAT testing is so important why isn’t it done in the home?

I guess, because in the workplace, your employer is responsible for the working environment. At home, it’s down to you.

Loads of things that are required by law at work aren’t required at home. I suspect phrases like ‘nanny state’ might get used if someone tried to bring it in.

I suspect the real answer is liability. If you electrocute yourself on your own toaster at home then that’s tough luck, if it happens at work then your boss could potentially go to prison.

It is at my parents flat (NT property).

Utter ball ache, they’ve started hiding everything apart fromt he big stuff in the loft when he comes round to avoid the “Can you find nokia charger serial number 121584ffe5d8ce?” questions.

A fair amount of land lords say that all your electrical equipment has to be tested. I’ve never bothered, but it was in the contracts. Guess thats just to cover them if shit goes wrong/to stop shit going wrong in the 1st place.

Out of interest,

Has anyone ever seen anything fail PAT? I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything.

Yup a few chargers at work.

Loads of things that are required by law at work aren’t required at home.

PAT isn’t, though. The legal requirement is to ensure that anything that can potentially* hurt you is safe. Companies employ PAT as a way of meeting this requirement, but there’s no regulations that mandate the actual testing.

(* – oh please yourselves)

you’d be surprised what electrical equipment schizophrenics can accumulate…. so yeah, seen loads of stuff fail PAT testing 😆

As Cougar says, the liability is that electrics are safe. A method of demonstrating this is by testing them.

Residential Landlords have the same liability / obligation to ensure that the electrical install in a rented property is safe. However, there’s no requirement to have them tested. Personally, I do as it is an independant benckmark. Others believe that them merely saying they are safe is sufficient to cover them [legally].

Has anyone ever seen anything fail PAT? I don’t think I’ve ever come across anything.

It’s pretty rare with IT kit but in other areas you get loads, especially tools that go onto site. I also suspect you’d get a lot more if the testing was done properly rather that just plugged into the machine and cycled.

I’ve watched a kettle pass PAT testing and then literally burst into flames about two weeks later after shorting out the entire ring.

PAT testing at datacentres is a complete ball-ache and stupidly expensive, waste of time to.

When I did initial testing at my old place there were loads of failures, also I found loads of daisy chains of extensions, to the point that I had them banned, but subsequent tests rarely failed much, oh and I also banned personal electrical equipment…..

It’s pretty rare with IT kit but in other areas you get loads, especially tools that go onto site.

Ah, good point. I hadn’t considered that.

Talking of wastes of time, the HSE’s internal approach to PAT is interesting.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/faq-portable-appliance-testing.htm

HSE’s approach to maintaining portable appliances in its own offices

In 2011, the HSE reviewed its approach to portable appliance maintenance in its own offices. Thinking about the type of equipment in use, and how it was used, the HSE looked back at the results from its annual testing of portable appliances across its estate over the last five years. Using the results of the previous tests, the HSE decided that further portable appliance tests are not needed within the foreseeable future or at all for certain types of portable equipment. Also, they decided to continue to monitor any faults reported as a result of user checks and visual inspections and review its maintenance system if evidence suggests that it needs revising. Electrical equipment will continue to be maintained by a series of user checks and visual inspections by staff that have had some training.

Key Points:

* Annual portable appliance testing is not always necessary in low risk environments
* You do not need to be an electrician to carry out visual inspections
* Low cost user checks and visual inspections are a good method of Maintaining portable electric equipment

Interesting reading that Cougar ( well sort of ), i’d always thought in some areas it was a bit over the top, I’m about to embark on a round of PAT here and didn’t know HSE had changed tack a bit. To be honest the guys here that would be most affected ( using corded tools etc ) look after their kit and i’ve never had a fail from them but i dont mind the tests on that stuff being done idependently just to be sure. ferreting under desks to check hubs and the like on the other hand is a (IMO) a waste of time….

print this off, and tell them to get stuffed

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg236.pdf

Note that any item that is double insulated should not be PAT tested, not needed!

I hate the phrase “PAT testing”, Portable Appliance Test testing. 😛

I had an email from a company offering to do my “Portable Appliance PAT Testing” once.

Dibbs, that point is the only reason I opened this thread.

It’s like LCD displays or PIN numbers…

Hurray! its that time of year of year again – 200plus theatre lanterns and various other stuff.

Anything that would fail is taken out of service and repaired or replaced anyway.
The records are handy for stock taking and the opportunity to do a thorough check and clean is good.

I Train my staff to check it’s safe when they pick it up.

It keeps the cooncil landlords/site electricians happy when they see a wee sticker, but pisses me off when people just whack stickers on stuff just to say its done.

In an office environment you can see its pretty much a waste of time but thats where I have seen the most broken damaged unrepaired 4 way multis. And wardrobe departments. What the hell do they do to them!!

ATM machines, PAC codes. You’ll notice, I didn’t fall for that little chestnut.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/sats-tests

And another I’ve just thought of. RAID array. Note to self: stop saying that.

Biggest failures I have to deal with (IT eqpt.) is earth bonding limits. Occasionally have high leakage currents too, which necessitate warning labels being applied, etc. Had the odd power cable fail a test too.

PAT testing at datacentres is a complete ball-ache and stupidly expensive, waste of time to.

Electrical safety is not a waste of time. Period.

print this off, and tell them to get stuffed

Wise words…until something goes wrong and it was your responsibility.