What is PAT Testing?

Electrical equipment that has been purchased from a reputable supplier should have a high standard of safety features built in. In order to ensure it stays safe it needs periodic maintenance. Regular maintenance ensures it doesn’t deteriorate to such an extent that people may get hurt.

Every year in the UK accidents occur as a result of contact with electricity, and in the worst cases, people die. We want to help reduce the chances of this happening, and we do this by PAT Testing electrical equipment to make sure it continues to be safe.

With PAT testing there is a degree of disruption that can’t be prevented, but we do our best to minimise this. We do this by providing a personal service on the job, of which all our engineers are highly experienced to ensure your team are not unduly effected.

For example, we recommend if your office has banks of desks, we take the staff off all the desks to test them as a batch rather than individually. This makes the total process a lot quicker, as we don’t have to trace every cable to prevent unplugging the wrong computer!

If you have devices kept at height, such as stage lighting – you should get them down in advance, ready for testing – it’s very difficult to stand on top of ladders, holding a test meter and the appliance to run the tests – we need 3 hands at least. We also need someone to foot the ladder; and the job is a lot slower than normal, so we need to charge you more to cover all this. So get the equipment to ground level, and none of that applies.

If you rent a property for living in, or for a holiday, then the appliances all need testing. The best time to do this is between tenancies or guests, but we can visit whilst they’re in use. If that is the case, then we need a list of all items to test from you, as we don’t know what is yours and what belongs to the tenant.

If your facility is a school, then it’s best to test during the school holidays – these periods are limited and book well in advance, many schools on long term contracts with us so space is limited. Get in early to ensure your appointment. If to be done term time our preference is to come in ‘mob handed’ as a team, early with the caretaker, to do classrooms before children start.

If you’re the manager of a doctors surgery, dentist, vets etc. get busy rooms out of the way first, maybe you can do a route plan for us to get from room to room easily, without disturbing staff and patients.

Don’t worry too much about what is going to happen – when our engineer arrives they’ll go through it with you – a tour of the facility helps.

Again, you don’t need to worry too much about this. The job involves inspecting the appliance to ensure it is not visually damaged in any way, that fuses and screws etc are correct, and running electrical tests to ensure such factors as earth and insulation protection are functioning correctly.

What you need to know is that to be checked fully a device must be unplugged; so it can’t be in use. Computers will need shutting down, for example. It doesn’t take long and if we work together we can ensure minimal disruption.

We appreciate some things can’t be shut down on a whim, such as server systems but you have your appointment date so consider if a shutdown can be done, as that is best. If not, perhaps we can arrange an out of hours inspection. If that’s not an option we could check the server using a thermal camera and do a visual inspection.

What about fixed appliances? Devices hard wired to the mains are different and we call these fixed appliances – they don’t have a plug so are not in the remit of PAT testing. However, they do need to be checked. As part of the PAT, we will visually inspect, and run where possible an earth continuity test, but you need to organise a full test at least once every 5 years from install. Usually this would be arranged with your electrician when they do the EICR, alternatively we do provide a fixed appliance testing service.

This is the most important question, as you need to know you are getting what you need. If there is an accident at work, someone gets a shock of a faulty appliance or a device overheats and catches fire you need to know you are protected.

That protection should be water tight, but you may be surprised to learn that the majority of PAT testing companies, don’t provide you with everything you need. Especially those that entice you with low price per item rates; they’ll get you in at 60p per item but for that you get a report that tells you nothing other than an item passed, but what did it pass? What was tested? What were the results? You don’t know. If you want all that you’ll need to pay a lot more next time for the job to be done correctly.

We don’t swindle you like this, we don’t offer false promises. We do the job correctly, first time, every time. We provide you with a fully itemised PAT Testing Certificate Report that lists every item tested, the location it is in, and the tests carried out. It also reflects the results obtained.

• Every item recorded including electrical test results
• Every item listed in it’s named location at your site

If you are ever in the unfortunate situation of being in court trying to prove your actions where acceptable, you will need a report that tells the investigator what they need to know – our reports do that, many of our competitors do not. If you get a report that lists a PC with a Pass next to it, and nothing else, all you know is it passed, but you don’t know what it passed, what the results were etc.

With our report you know it passed the visual inspection, it was tested for earth continuity with a pass result of 0.03 MΩ, and insulation resistance of >19.99MΩ

That tells the investigator (or prosecutor) that the appliance was safe at time of testing, if that test was within a timeframe proportionate to the risk then you should be ok. In fact we’d be surprised this case even got to court with this information available.

Furthermore if a repair is needed the engineer will do it automatically, usually for free, and test the appliance after, recording that the repair was carried out. You didn’t get charged for the repair or the retest – win win for you. Many companies fail, then repair, then retest and charge for the repair and retest – we don’t do this.

On the very rare occasion that a repair will yield additional costs we quote you before doing it; that can be done when the engineer is on site or at a later date. This tends to only happen in industrial locations where commando plugs are involved, as they cost a lot to supply so we have to charge for them.

So, you get from us everything that you need, including: 

• Free repairs including to the plug, flex, replacement plugs and fuses, and plug rewires (and log of maintenance)
• Microwave ovens tested for Emissions Leakage
• Guidance on retest periods, other compliance measures, safety enhancements, etc.
• Fully itemised PAT Testing Certificate Report as a PDF.

PAT testing is a part of the larger aspect of electrical inspection and testing, for checking electrical appliances are safe for continued use; similar to how a periodic inspection checks the electrical mains wiring. We can also help with your mains wiring inspections, see our EICR page for more information.

For ease of understanding as the term ‘portable’ causes a lot of confusion – if it is portable from the mains (can be unplugged) then it is a portable appliance.