Specialist providers of Office PAT Testing
We have carried out thousands of PAT testing jobs in offices without any issues, so rest assured if you choose us to do your office PAT testing you’re in safe, experienced hands.
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We can do your office PAT testing for you
If you are looking for someone to carry out PAT testing in your office you have come to the right place. We are experts in office PAT testing, having specialised in PAT testing IT equipment for many years.
When you are arranging your office PAT testing you need…
Engineers that know how to best test sensitive IT equipment so it doesn’t get damaged internally
Pat testers who understand the intricacies of server systems, and what each part is
Engineers who can test your office equipment efficiently whilst minimising the down time for your staff
Guidance on how often you need to get retests done – annual PAT testing isn’t required in most offices.
We can help you with all of this. What makes our service even better is we will…
Send you email reminders when your equipment needs testing again, so you’re always compliant (with telephone follow up if you don’t respond)
Give you a dedicated engineer who will work with you long term. We’re a small business, with one owner and a small team; together we’ll work with you to ensure your systems are always safe and compliant
Work with you on the day of testing to get the work done quickly with minimal disruption to your business.
Carry out repairs free of charge to help ensure equipment passes, such as repairing damaged cables, replacing damaged plugs, replacing incorrect fuses and helping you make sure all your equipment meets British Safety Standards
Provide cable management services (basically tidy up messy cables) as we work
Remove our old labels, or the previous company’s labels, and apply ours neat and discreet
Guide you in ways to maintain or improve safety in your office, such as reducing the overuse of extension leads
Get you a discount off your fixed wiring inspections (EICR) when that is due.
Send your fully itemised (with electrical results) PAT Testing Certificate Report to you as a PDF document within 5 days of the job being done, and an excel version if you need it.
And we will do this without breaking the bank; our prices are very competitive and fair, with the best discounts offered for office PAT testing.
We are here to help you. When you choose us to PAT test your electrical equipment you get peace of mind that we will help you maintain safe equipment; if we find faults we will fix them, we will guide you in ways to improve your electrical safety – we will provide you with paperwork to support you when you need it.
It is our aim to help business owners understand and manage their electrical safety – we can help you with your electrical equipment (with plugs and ‘hard’ wired) and your mains wiring (EICR).
PAT Testing Offices & Low Risk Workplaces
PAT testing office equipment or other workplaces that have offices can be daunting for you from an organisation perspective. When you think of how you’re going to manage it, the disruption, getting people off their computers and so on, you don’t need to worry.
We have been testing offices for years and have loads of experience. We now know the best ways to do our job to minimise disruption and work with you to ensure the whole process runs smoothly for all of us.
Once we see the job, either in advance during a survey, or on the job we will advise you of the best course of action to get the job done quickly with minimal fuss.
Office equipment such as IEC leads are tested separately and will have their own result, PCs, printers, laptop chargers, photo copiers, servers, network switches and UPS battery backups can all be tested safely with our test equipment.
What our clients say about us…
Information about PAT testing in offices
Taking office PAT Testing to the next level
When we carry out Office PAT testing we’re not just testing your equipment to make sure its safe but we’re also checking it’s being used correctly too.
We check you’re not daisy-chaining extension leads (not running more than one in sequence, plugged into each other), and if you are we find a better solution for you.
We check floor boxes are being used correctly and cables aren’t becoming trapped
We check cables aren’t a trip hazard, and that trunking is being used correctly
We work with our clients to find better ways to manage their office IT equipment and other electrical appliances so they operate an efficient workplace.
This socket was found in an office; as you can see from the brown marks, the heater that was plugged into it, had caused overheating of the socket. It had overheated because these sockets were only intended to be used with low power drawing IT equipment, not electric heaters. Things like this often get missed by users of equipment in the office. This could very easily have become something far more serious such as a fire, had we not spotted it when we did.
Check out this article on why you shouldn’t plug electric heaters into extension leads
How often should PAT testing be done in an office?
Every 2 years – as a general guide office PAT testing requirements suggest every 2 years as the best interval for how often PAT testing should be done in an office.
The HSE recommends that office equipment is PAT tested every 2-4 years, but taking into account risks of accident, fire, etc it is a brave office manager who allows 4 years to pass between checks. We certainly would not recommend it.
2 yearly PAT tests are a good period of time; it’s not too often, and it’s not too long. Imagine getting something new, that wasn’t as safe as you thought, and you plugged it in after the PAT test has been done, planning to use it for another 4 years before it gets checked. Only for it to start a fire after a year’s use, because it wasn’t up to British safety standards.
Whilst every 2 years is recommended, don’t take that as gospel; there may be other circumstances to consider, and a more frequent PAT testing frequency may be better for your business.
We recommend to our clients that we test such items every 2 years – that’ll save you half your usual costs!
A computer sat on a desk gets put there and stays there usually until it gets replaced or you move around the office, so the chances of it developing a fault are low. So the risk is low; so you shouldn’t need to test it every year.
What needs PAT Testing in an office?
Computers, monitors, printers, photocopiers, their power leads, extension blocks and so on all need to be in a safe condition to meet the Electricity at Work regulations. Electrical safety is paramount to protect your staff.
Phone chargers, laptop leads, radios, fans, heaters and general kitchen equipment all add to the risk of overloading extension leads, so it is important to regularly get us in to ensure we help you maintain a safe working environment.
All these things are classed as standard electrical equipment, and when they’re in an office, where all equipment is like this, be it a doctors surgery, recruitment company, accountancy firm or even a school, this applies to you.
But you know your electrical equipment is ‘safe’…
If you’re managing an office, lots of computers, etc. You pretty much know they’re “safe”.
They’ve sat on the desk since you bought them, they work fine, they’ve never been dropped or had coffee spilled on them. So why do they need PAT Testing?
Are you sure the plug is the right type? That it meets British Standards? That it’s not one of the cheap, dangerous counterfeits that flooded the UK a few years back, prone to overheating after prolonged use?
Does it have the right fuse in the plug? Even have a fuse? Has someone changed the fuse and used the wrong one? Will it protect you if there is a fault?
Are you overloading extension leads? Is there too many items plugged in? Is there something plugged in that could cause overload ?
Are staff secretly bringing items to work that are not safe? Like cheap phone chargers that can catch?
Are all your sockets accessible? If someone got an electric shock would you be able to disconnect the power in time?
If you’re unsure about any of these, a PAT test is what you need. PAT is about more than checking appliances are safe, it also checks…
They’re being used in the right way,
In the right place
Correctly
Have been installed correctly
Meet British Safety Standards, etc
Once you’ve done all these checks you’re on the right path to a safer office. You’ll need to do it again in the future, but probably not every year.
Some cheaper suppliers skip a lot of these steps so they can concentrate on testing as many items as they can in the shortest time – we look ???? at the bigger picture to help you maintain a safer working environment, long term.
We are DRA PAT Testing – speak to us today about your office PAT testing.
We are Office PAT Testing Experts
Office electrical equipment should be maintained to always be safe to use. Whilst most office appliances sit on a desk and rarely move, they are low risk, but accidents do still happen, and you as an office manager or business owner (for example) are responsible for ensuring the safety of your staff and other users. Not to mention protecting the business from the risk of fire.
It’s for these reasons that it is essential that you are PAT testing office equipment regularly enough to prevent accidents and fires occurring.
Office PAT testing should done initially, on all appliances, then at intervals regularly enough to maintain safety, but not so often that you’re wasting money getting tested too often. We can help you manage both of these situations.
Office electrical safety is something that should be taken seriously; ensuring your mains wiring as well as appliances are up to the task that your business requires is essential for efficient working, production and safety.
Also, to consider, if your office has been closed due to the Covid Pandemic, and your staff are now returning to the office, you need to make sure they are returning to a safe and secure environment, so getting PAT testing, that may have been allowed to lapse, updated, as soon as possible, is very important.
PAT testing office equipment
Electrical Safety is very important in your office; we come to you to make sure your electrical appliances are safe; to check they are in good working order, in a safe condition.
We will inspect each appliance thoroughly and carry out any necessary repairs
We’ll check your appliance plugs and wiring meet British Safety standards
We’ll replace defective plugs and incorrect fuses in plugs, free of charge
We’ll tidy up messy wires under desks, and try to reduce the amount of extension leads you use
We’ll remove (or at least try to) old PAT testing labels before applying our own, which we do so neatly, and discreetly.
We’ll advise you of any other electrical issues we come across, such as faulty sockets
We won’t turn off servers, putting your business security at risk, but work with you to find the best solution for maintaining a safe server system
We’ll work around your staff where possible, and use our huge amount of experience to keep disruption to a minimum, and
After all that, and anything else we may have done, we will compile your PAT Testing Certificate Report, and send it to you by by the end of the week!
We have specialised in PAT testing office equipment for over 10 years; our engineers understand the risks and sensitivity of your IT equipment and are best suited to helping you maintain safe electrics in the office.
We understand that you may not want to turn off the server, so will work with you to find the best solution to managing it, whether that be leaving it alone completely, inspecting it visually, or coming back another day to test it. We can even look at doing thermal image surveys on it. A well maintained server doesn’t need PAT testing as often as the rest of your office; once every 5 years should be sufficient.
Cables under desks get messy, its a fact of life, but one we can sort easily – we’ll tidy up those messy cables for you, by managing your use of extension leads. If we can reduce the number of extensions you use we will do that too.
If there is one thing we dislike about our job, is that we have to stick labels on your expensive appliances; that shouldn’t happen, but it does, and its important, so we respect your equipment. We’ll apply our labels straight, neat, and in a discreet whilst visible location. We won’t put them on the front of TV’s and we’ll not cover up important information stamps. We will also do our best to remove previous company labels; some are nearly impossible to get off, but we will do our best. And where we can we’ll put our labels over their residue so you’re not having even more messy areas.
We have done office PAT testing for many years, so we know what system works best to keep disruption to a minimum and to get out of your hair as quick as we can. So we will work with you to do this.
Office Electrical Safety
Using electrical equipment safely in the office is really important, and a legal requirement for all employers. Keeping up to date with office electrical inspections, EICR and portable appliance testing is the best way to maintain compliance with Health and Safety at Work.
Poorly installed or maintained electrical equipment can increase the risk of dangers, faulty wiring and overloaded socket extensions are all going to put you at more risk. If you use too many extension leads, or have cables trailing across walkways, incorrect fuses and using appliances not suitable to the environment all lead to increases in the risk of accidents.
The most common causes of electrical issues in offices are faulty appliances, incorrect use of equipment and unsafe wiring installations. All these lead to a necessity to ensure your office electrical safety is kept updated through regular office electrical inspections.
What does office PAT testing cost?
Because you don’t have power tools, your office is usually clean and tidy (we’ll let you off with the dust), and you make a nice cup of tea, we’ll give you a great discount off our standard prices.
In fact, you can get as much as 20% off our usual PAT testing prices just because your business is office based.
10 Top tips to improve Office electrical safety
To improve your office electrical safety consider these 10 top tips
Make sure cables are not under carpets to avoid damage
Make sure you know what plug is for what appliance, so it can be quickly disconnected if there is an accident
Don’t hide sockets behind filing cabinets, shelves and photocopiers
Make sure appliances have adequate ventilation
If using desk trunking, don’t just force the cables in there, place them neatly to avoid tension
Don’t put liquids (eg drinks) on top of electrical appliances
Don’t position appliances where it needs the lead to be stretched
Make sure equipment in use has all its safety features (like sides)
Reduce the amount of extension leads you’re using, and don’t daisy chain them
Keep cables tidy or use our cable management service