On-Site Portable Appliance Testing - PAT Testing

Earlier this year we published an article regarding a service visit to British Telecom in London to service some of their floor cleaning machines and we touched on the topic of PAT Testing. If you missed the article you can read it here: http://service.a3machines.info/fulfilling-corporate-service-contracts/. Since then we have been back to BT’s headquarters in Central London, to complete the servicing of their machine including Portable Appliance Testing (PAT Testing).

UK Health and Safety Law

Whilst PAT Testing is not a legal requirement, UK Health and Safety legislation does stipulate that employers (which includes the self-employed) ensure that all electrical equipment that they provide in their business is safe and properly maintained.  The Health and Safety executive have published a brief guide on this topic which you can download for free via the following link: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg291.pdf

The relevant section is copied below:

What do the Regulations require me to do?

You must ensure that the work equipment you provide meets the requirements of PUWER. You should ensure that it is: 
■ suitable for use, and for the purpose and conditions in which it is to be used; 
■ maintained in a safe condition for use so that people’s health and safety is not at risk; and 
■ inspected, in certain circumstances, to ensure that it is and continues to be safe for use. Any inspection should be carried out by a competent person (this could be an employee if they have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to perform the task) and a record kept until the next inspection.

If an accident occurs and a subsequent investigation reveals that measures were not in place to protect the employee an employer can be found liable.

PAT Testing Recommendations

Clearly employers needs to ensure the equipment they provide is safe and fit for purpose and whilst there are no government guidelines for the frequency of machine servicing or PAT Testing it makes sense to have this done annually.

You do not need a qualified electrician to carry out your PAT Testing, you do however need a competent person who understands how to carry out a full visual inspection and has been trained in the use of a PAT Tester to run the necessary checks which include Earth leakage and insulation testing.  A3 Engineers make a good choice for this activity, not only are they fully trained in PAT Testing they also have an in-depth knowledge of the cleaning equipment we maintain and are able to spot issues others would miss.

All equipment is labelled following testing and failures will be investigated and repaired by the same engineer, if possible on-site.

To contact A3 Machines to organise  PAT Test for your equipment please call us on 01630 661 596 or via email info@a3machines.co.uk  


PAT Testing and Servicing at British Telecom House in Central London

To find out more about Servicing and PAT Testing Cleaning Machines please visit: http://www.a3machines.co.uk/machine-servicing

This article was originally published on http://service.a3machines.info
Location: London, UK

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