Electrical equipment inspection
22/08/2010
As the law now currently stands, employers are duty bound to ensure that all electrical appliances are regular PAT tested. The point of an electrical equipment inspection is to ensure that appliances are up to standard and not about to endanger life. There is though no rule however about how often an appliance should be tested. Generally speaking the more often an appliance is used the more often it should be tested.
Other factors also come into play when testing an appliance such as whether it has a cord and the kind of environment the appliance is being kept in – such as a wet environment.
There are also different grades of appliance that need to have regular electrical equipment inspections. These include:
Portable objects such as toasters
Fixed electrical objects such as bathroom heaters
Information technology appliances, such as computers and fax machines.
Electrical equipment inspection can be carried out by a huge range of PAT testers but generally speaking you really get what you pay for as with PAT testers the more expensive options provide analysed readouts. These are a vast improvement on the PAT testers which only offer a pass or fail readout. A PAT tester that provides a readout allows the inspector to analyse what the problem might be rather than just understanding that there is a problem without any diagnosis of what has caused the damage in the first place. In short, in order to perform a through electrical equipment inspection it is best to have the best quality PAT tester possible. These will set you back at least £1000.
