PAT Testing Business Tools / Equipment

[Click4]

Hi,

Just got a load of kit to start doing air conditioning servicing on cars, involves a lot of electrical kit.

does this equipment all need PAT Testing, talking things like recovery machine, vacuum pump, refrigerant bottle heater, antibacterial fogging machine, extension leads.

 

[martinxxxxxx]

In short yep[/youtube]

 

[Click4]

Thanks, will look for a PAT tester then lol

 

[martinxxxxxx]

I pat test up to 10 items for 35 quid- not an offer but, you might as well get someone to do it for you, it'll take ten years to cover your money back on a tester, plus for it to count; you really need the correct qualification cert and some insurance. If you are taking the kit onto another companies site they might want to see the PAT certificate and may not be impressed if you have put it together yourself.
Bit like F-gas, many people in the trade but really not that many fully legal

 

[Click4]

I pat test up to 10 items for 35 quid- not an offer but, you might as well get someone to do it for you, it'll take ten years to cover your money back on a tester, plus for it to count; you really need the correct qualification cert and some insurance. If you are taking the kit onto another companies site they might want to see the PAT certificate and may not be impressed if you have put it together yourself.
Bit like F-gas, many people in the trade but really not that many fully legal

Hi, Thanks

True, I forgot about the training and certificate, I am aware a lot of people do PAT testing themselves without being qualified to do so.

So better I get somebody to do it, im in essex so maybe a bit far anyway lol.

Agree with F-Gas, its illegal to even buy refrigerant without being trained in handling and posessing a certificate but lots of places dont ask to see it before selling. So there is lots of people who arent legally allowed, usually garages who buy an automated machine and sell aircon servicing without anybody qualified to use it.

so is £35 for a couple of items about the going rate?

I have a vacuum pump, recovery machine, heater blanket, fog machine (same as disco fogger, but uses special liquids designed for antibacterial use in cars and homes), extension cable.

 

[ericmark]

There is nothing to say you must get it tested. However you need to show you have a system in place to ensure you don't end up with equipment which could cause a danger. The testing and inspection of in service electrical equipment (PAT testing) is one way to ensure you both don't upset the HSE and comply in insurance requirements.

It is normal for those testing to give a date for re-test. This can vary from 3 months to 4 years (latter standard for IT stuff). With new stuff you need to consider when to get the first test.

I would always test before any guarantee runs out. I have had faulty new equipment and for that reason we always tested it before first use so if it was faulty we could return it while there were no questions about guarantee running out.

I suppose a guarantee is as the name suggests a guarantee that the equipment is fit for service. A warranty however only says they will repair if it goes wrong.

The problem is timers and relays. The standard method is to use a special machine which you plug items into which works fine for something like an electric drill where you just pull the trigger and it runs. However something like a fridge/freezer will only run if warm enough so even with a simple model the tester may need to wait for it to warm up before he can test it. With frost free types the heater only works after a long time of running and it is near impossible to test with a standard PAT testing machine.

Washing machines also have the same problem so to comply with HSE rules the easy way is to take out a maintenance contract which then puts the responsibility to them to ensure anything which could cause danger is tested for.

So you may find it needs some maintenance for your equipment on a regular basis which will cover the testing for electrical safety. The main part of PAT testing is the inspection bit. It is normal to have more inspections than testing i.e. look for damaged leads.

What is important is your records. You need an equipment register the forms are
here the bit your interested in starts on page 20 form V1.1 it is more to do with showing you have a system in place to ensure items are fit for use then the actual testing. It's the mark made by the person testing to say he did it that's important so a label saying this item has been PAT tested is no good without the paperwork to back it up.

Some firms who do PAT testing really leave a lot to be desired. But it is up to you to ensure it's managed not them and that's how they get away with it. I have questioned many times the changing of ID numbers each time an item is tested. With items which are rough treated like in the construction industry often only 3 months ticket is given so for an item which will last 5 years it may have to be tested 20 times. So it can work out expensive.

I would be questioning anyone who gives a price per item. We would test one item of portable equipment three electricians would test 1/3 of the plant every 3rd weekend on the Sunday so that's 72 hours to test it. Clearly doing 10 items like that for £35 is not going to work. It was a batching plant was moved as 8 articulated trailers so was portable and the testing included all the safety switches plus maintenance i.e. squirt of oil. Clearly your machines are not that complex but still unlikely to be as simple as just sticking on a machine.

One has to question charging £3.5 to test an extension lead which only costs £1 to buy. If one has lead sets that's something like a kettle lead then it can get expensive. £7 to test a kettle can buy a new one for that. It is of course swings and roundabouts where you are over charged for some items and undercharged for others. I remember my son doing some fixed price stuff and the shop calling him every week to test some new bit of kit. He clearly had expected to test all items together not having to test single items. It cost him more to park then what he got for the work.

 

[martinxxxxxx]

I am a cheap date - it might be a bit more. But it is usually an "add on" to a landlord certificate (sic) and I need to be competitive on these. But I also do it as a way of introducing our service to people. For the £35 it is quite a bit of work as you can see. You should be able to find some one near you to do it. Probably worth it as I say if you are going on to peoples property with your gear - for one thing you would want to be sure you don't trip their electrics with you vacuum pump and get into trouble.

 

[SimonH2]

As ericmark says, PAT isn't an end in itself, it is part of a system.

You don't actually need a dedicated test unit if you have other test tools (insulation resistance and continuity) and only a few items to test. However, once you stray away from a unit where you select the type of device (Class I, Class II, lead), hit "Test", and the unit gives you a good or bad indication - then you need to be able to determine what test parameters to use and how to interpret the results.
The actual test if very simple - if you apply a voltage between L&N combined and earth, does any current flow (shouldn't do); if you stuff a current between earth pin on the plug and the device casing, is there a low enough resistance to trip protective devices (fuse in plug) and avoid dangerous voltages. The issue is that without training, you won't know what voltage to use for IR on different devices, what current to use for continuity (if there's a choice), and what results are acceptable.
My training only qualifies me to use a "go"/"no go" tester, though I don't suppose it would be hard to learn the details above if I needed to.

In any case, inspection is 90% of PAT - I don't know the actual figures, but it's some very high percentage of faults are found by inspection rather than test. Only the other day, on a customer site (I was doing IT work, not PAT) I found two moulded 13A plugs where the cable sheath had pulled back leaving the cores exposed - one was a "kettle lead" on some IT kit (pulled the fuse out of the plug and cut the cable into short bits), the other was on their Henry vacuum cleaner and I advised them to have a new plug fitted.
Teaching operators how to do a very basic inspection each time they get a piece of equipment out to use would be a good start. Just a few seconds to see that :
The plug is still fitted to the cable properly (ie cable not pulled out).
No cuts or worn through patches on the cable sheath.
Cable still entering the unit properly.
And nothing broken on the unit.
Get operators to do just those check and you'll catch the majority of things a PAT would catch.

Good luck with that, at work we can't even get people to not drive the cars with obviously almost flat tyres or low (coolant or oil) light on the dashboard The concept of actually inspecting anything is completely foreign.

And just for good measure, once you've bought your PA Tester, you'll need to pay to have it calibrated every year. That's a nice little earner for someone - you can easily pay as much for calibration in 3 or 4 years as the unit cost

 

[ericmark]

I in 2000 started a new job mainly to do inspection and testing. They had a PAT tester never used still in box so it was sent for a traceable calibration.

I voiced the idea of getting software and the firm said yes. However when it arrived I needed the figures to be entered as the whole idea is to show a trend. Phoned up the software house who said just look at the calibration certificate and enter in the pass figure the tester is set to.

Now the fun started. There were no figures on the certificate as to what level it passed or failed items. But traceable so just got hold of firm would had got it calibrated. However it seemed they had in turn sent it to a calibration house so they would need to get back to me.

In the mean time I sent software back and instead used Excel as I could easy change passA for the figure once known.

Days went to months as still we had not got the info so threats were made get it done or you lose all out business. Rep then asks can he have the tester back to re-test as they can't find the traceable record. So much for traceable.

At this point we are told the tester is set to an old standard and can't be modified to the new standard and all items tested now have a void test certificate as a result.

So new PAT tester was bought and everything had to be re-tested.

After that there is no way I am sending my test gear for calibration. I have some known resistors and I DIY that way I know it's done right. The so called calibration was a pure rip off. I was trained on how to calibrate when working for GEC Large Steam Turbines so not taking a chance.

I hate to admit it but the whole PAT testing system seems to be rip off city. There are a few who use it as a loss leader to get business but so many just stick on labels.

In University working on a PLC we were asked about any safety issues. I thought there must be one or why ask so started to look. I realised the Alan Bradley PLC was designed to be mounted inside an enclosure and the vents were too big to comply with IP rating and the power connection could be opened without the use of a tool. Reading the manufacturers data confirmed this they were not to be used as stand alone units.

All had PAT testing labels yet the manufacturer said they could not be used. Seems I put a cat amongst the pidgins there.

Sorry to say there are many such mistakes made where semi-skilled labour is used and they have no idea once they leave the standard kettle as what passes and what fails.

In my house a 30 foot extension lead is no problem I have RCD protection on all sockets. However take that lead to a house where there is no RCD protection and there is a problem.

For a mobile guy who will plug into any available socket this is a problem. So you will see many tradesman who work in private houses will use something like this

to ensure the socket they are using is safe to use. Add to that a RCD plug on all your equipment and I would say it is highly unlikely using some common sense that you will ever have a problem.

The problem is what does your insurance require? In many cases items are PAT tested not to make it any safer but in order to tick the boxes required by insurance companies.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

at work we can't even get people to not drive the cars with obviously almost flat tyres or low (coolant or oil) light on the dashboard The concept of actually inspecting anything is completely foreign.

http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~chrislw/rental.html

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[SimonH2]

http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~chrislw/rental.html

Yep, that about sums it up - especially the bin about the floor being shaped like an ashtray (though really in our case, rubbish bin) When one guy left, they had a clear out fo the car he used most, and fetched out THREE bin bags of stuff. The joy of pool cars - everything is always "someone else's" responsibility.

And the boss wonders why I, and now another guy who had been doing basic checks, refuse to have anything to do with their maintenance.

 

[ericmark]

at work we can't even get people to not drive the cars with obviously almost flat tyres or low (coolant or oil) light on the dashboard The concept of actually inspecting anything is completely foreign.

http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~chrislw/rental.html

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Now I realise the problem. My wife thinks she has a company car!!