PAT Testing
Introduction
The Electricity at Work Regulations requires all electrical systems to be maintained in a safe condition. There are no specific requirements for inspection and testing in the regulations, however, to determine if maintenance is required, some form of inspection and testing will need
to be carried out.
The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) has published guidance and recommendations on the inspection and testing of electrical equipment, this forms the basis of Portable Appliance Testing (PAT).
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has also published guidance on portable appliance testing which can be found at www.hse.gov.uk
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I use a smart PAT tester which links to my phone and carries out a series of tests based upon the type of item being tested. The test data is saved and later downloaded to an Excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet is sent to my customers on payment of their invoice. Basic infomation about the items is retained for use in future tests.
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Items do need to be unplugged for the duration of the test, extension leads, etc. are tested separately to the appliances plugged in to them.
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To give an idea of how long the testing takes; I can test about 10 items an hour if I'm collecting data on the first time I'm testing an item, for those items I have tested previously the speed increases to approximately 15 items an hour.