Latest / The Electrical Show / Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan cover PAT Testing

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Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan cover PAT Testing · The Electrical Show

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The Electrical Show with Thomas Najie sponsored by Bosch Professional Powerful power tools to measuring
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tools and experts accessories. Welcome to the Electrical Show here on Fix Radio with
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Bosch Professional on Thomas Najie and with you for the next hour in the studio.
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Next to me is Paul meena Now we are talking today about PAT testing
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everyone on site. What pat testing? Yes? Is it treated as a
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joke and do we actually take it seriously enough? That is what we are
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going to be talking about today on the show. Now, Paul, he's
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got his iPad and he's got lots of paper and pens. I've got a
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feeling he's going to be very vocal on this show, The Electrical Show on
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Fix Radio. I'm Thomas Nagie with Paul Meenan, and this afternoon we're talking
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about PAT testing. That first song out the Door actually Queen, it's a
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kind of magic bizarre. There's actually my absolute favorite Queen's song. I picked
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up it was a high. It sounds like a silly thing to say that.
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I actually picked up a runo traffic from Reno, and obviously from Reno
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they let me borrow it. Shut up producing he's getting a bit gobby here
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the producer. I picked up a higher van and Reno had they basic gave
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it to me for free for some sponsorship. And I was driving down the
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m one and I just turned the radio on. I didn't set it when
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I literally turned it on, and a kind of magic was playing and some
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reason, I don't know, that moment stuck in my head and it's not
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relevant to any of you on site, so I don't know why I said
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it. So we're going to move on to PAT testing now, Paul pat
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testing just sharing my life, you know, PAT testing or portable applied testing.
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There will be some trade he's listening that don't know exactly what it is.
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So in a nutshell, give us the gravy. Well, welcome to
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nighttime Naps with Paul and Tom. We're here talking about Paul appliant no so
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so straight off lefty bunk pat testing. So pat testing. Any electrician here
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is that word will just go, oh well god, this can be a
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boring month. So if we look at the IT Code of Practice, which
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is the fifth edition, now, one of the wonderful things it actually talks
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about is removing the term PAT testing. We shouldn't we call it PAT testing.
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In fact, the acronym now is is it, which is the in
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service inspection and testing of electrical equipment. So yeah, I don't think that's
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going to catch on. That's that's just doesn't flow off the time, doesn't
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know, Yeah is it? Is it? Yeah? Yeah, So it's
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changed now the word PAT testing should be removed from company procedures and policies.
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It's no longer portable appliance testing. It's well, it's actually portable appliance testing
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testing testing testing, yes, m yeah, it's basically the effectively for in
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a nutshell, it was stuff that would move years ago, and over the
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years, the the definition has been cloudy because if you think of a simple
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you pull into a service station, we all know fixed yre testing. Um,
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you know, that's part of the fabric. It goes to a few
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spur who does the hand rise, who tests and inspects them because they're not
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portable. So what they've done is they've actually come to realize, yes,
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there's a gap here. So fixed equipment is now part of what would be
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portable appliance testing, which is the definition of insanity because it's not portable.
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Henceforth, in service inspection and testing of electric line. Yeah, E is
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the acronym. We're just going to call it PAD testing for the rest of
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this show. That is now clarified. So we're trying to remove the gap
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because if you think of the amount of equipment electrical equipment out there that the
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public will handle, there is a gap. And so the IET Code of
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Practice is trying to encourage people to demark exactly what becomes part of the fixed
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wire testing on what becomes part of the portable appliance testing, which leads me
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on to our next question. Who do you think doesn't take it seriously enough?
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Is it the landlord, the business owner, the electrical contractor. They,
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I would say a lot of people do. I'll be honest with you.
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I've done the pat testing, city and guilds, I've managed electrical installations
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and I have I would be lying if I said I wasn't complacent with it.
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However, I have known people to get shocks off of stuff, and
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that's kind of sharpened the pencil and refocus the attitude, especially in modern years
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where we're importing stuff on Amazon and eBay and we don't really know whether it
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actually complies with any UK directives. It's more and more and more of it,
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and Electrical Safety First are doing lots and lots of good work, and
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the Office of Trading Standards there's lots of product standard websites where you can go
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and see all the recalls. Even i'd be careful, I haven't checked for
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ages, but I know and used to be able to go onto the NIC's
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website and used to type in the name of a contractor. It would bring
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up whether they were a domestic at stall or an approved contractor. But there
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was also a pack test tick if they've done the extra bolt on course for
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pat testing. I don't actually know if that's even still there or not.
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It was a while ago when I saw that last. But yeah, so
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there was the Seating Guilds two, three, seven, seven, Parts one
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and two, which was like the doing of pack testing and the management and
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oversight of pack testing. I've done. I did both. I'm sure they've
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probably been replaced now, just shows how rusty I am on it. But
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yeah, no, there was qualifications and you should have them because when I
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went and did my training course, I thought it was just a visual inspection
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and then I realized that actually there's a hell of a lot more to proving
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the integrity of the equipment. The trouble is is there's no law that says
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you will pat test. There's multiple laws in for all equipment shelby inspected or
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maintained. What level is down this is. We're actually going to talk about
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that in the next link, about how thoroughly this actually, how thoroughly this
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actually gets done. But what are the main concerns if it's not taken seriously
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because there are there's a lot of companies which don't I mean there's a lot
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of people who don't do it right. Okay, without going into law,
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this kind of a number of activities you can do. So there are the
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functional checks, so every time you pick a piece of equipment up, you'll
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always have a look at it and make sure it works, otherwise it won't
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work. There's then the formal visual inspection without testing and recording of you functional
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tests of this equipment works, it's got no damage, no breaks. And
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then there's what we call the combined inspection and testing, where you'll go along
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and annually or every three months, depending on where it is and what site
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you're using them. Because on site there are different test requirements than say in
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an office and the formal inspection and testing to say I have a record of
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what equipment I'm providing as the employer and what people are using, and I
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have a robust inspection and test regime sometimes occasionally and I'm sure everybody's got a
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story where they've heard of an office block where somebody's gone in dunpack testing and
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blown up half the monitors, or they've tested like six hundred items in a
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day, or they've done six hundred items in a day, okay, and
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what was the exact extent of the inspection and test or was it just go
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and stick, go and stick stickers on and right your initials on. Is
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is a bit of a problem in the industry. The Electrical Show on fixed
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radio. This is the Electrical Show. I'm Thomas Nagie with Paul Mean,
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and if you've just tuned in, we're talking about portable appliance testing otherwise known
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as testing, and whether it's being taken seriously enough. In this day and
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age, there are a lot of contractors that it's basically just a visual inspection
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that looks good, sticker on and six hundred a day later, and your
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invoice with many thousands of pounds for it. That is rife. What's your
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take on it? Fundamentally, that isn't a necessarily a bad thing. We're
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all supposed to be in. The employer is supposed to be in providing us
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safe workplaces and safe work equipment. We're supposed to treat the equipment well and
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not use it. I wouldn't want to use a piece of equipment that was
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damaged. And if somebody gave me a bit of equipment for the first time
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or whatever, I'd always have a quick look at it. You know,
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we as electricians are always looking at fred leads, damage plugs and what do
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you do? You cut it off, you repair it, you do what
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you need to do. Unfortunately, there is there is parts of the industry
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to treat it like a joke. There are parts of the industry to go
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around just putting stickers on and bill in was it one pound and appliance or
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one pound fifteen appliance? Now you try, Yeah, you try doing an
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office to say a tower block to ten story tower block, and let's say
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you've got six thousand appliances there. Now it's going to take ages to pull
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apart. If it's a full combined inspection and test. You have to pull
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apart these desks, which can be a labyrinth of extension leads and cables,
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plus a PC and a monitor and some other bits and bobs. Testing all
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that. Doing earth continuity, insulation resistance, full inspection and test, you're
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looking at hours and hours and hours and hours. And I mean I went
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went out to do an audit on some pack testers that I was employing,
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and they were like, yeah, we've priced to do it over two nights.
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And it was an entire office block and it was our head office.
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And I went out there and I went, right, let's do it properly,
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had the code of practice. It took us all night to do two
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bays to take them apart. And the other worst thing is at the end,
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the guy to Aronny said, I've learned loads. We don't normally do
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it like this. We just stick a plug on. I won't, but
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we found so many damaged extension leads, so many hazards, and if we
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wouldn't have pulled it all apart, we never would have found it, and
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eventually it would have hurt someone. All start, it's moldering. And that's
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what scares me, because you sit there and go, how are we even
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allowing this culture of one pound fifty? Fair enough, it's a visual inspection.
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But given the way some desks are wired, and you know now that
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we're doing fixed equipment as well, how much time do you allow on one
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pound fifty is a limited amount? I mean, yeah, I get it.
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How do you open up some of these components to get into the terminals
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to check the terminals if you've never done it before? And there are thousands
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and thousands of different pieces of equipment, so it's very much risk based everything
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it regards to maintenance and inspection of portable appliances or fixed u It does seem
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to be risk based now, and there is requirements in the Electricity at Work
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Regulation regulation for two for those who want to read it to reflect accurately the
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legal requirements. We are now going to the whelms of risk assessment. So
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years ago, there used to be a spreadsheet you could print out from the
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HSC and it would say three months for everyon site. You know, if
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you're in an office, you can do twelve months, forty eight months,
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thirty six months for let's say printers, photocopierses twelve months, So it would
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give you recommended frequencies, but just be clear they were only ever recommendations.
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As an employer, you can set wherever recommendation you can. You just need
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to have a defense in a court of law and say to someone or demonstrate
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that you've considered the risk of inspecting and testing electrical equipment. So the ITA
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COP says that a robust risk asession should be carried out in all cases to
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evaluate the frequency between inspection and testing. This is the responsibility of the due
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holder for the equipment risk encompas is many factor that can even you influence a
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final decision. So as a client, I'm an employer, I have a
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policy because we employ hundreds of people. Once you go above five, you
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have to start having policies, health and safety policies and all that. And
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in that you may make a statement that electrical equipment will be regularly inspected and
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maintained and fit for use. You then have to decide what that frequency is.
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And if you're doing work on site like you are TOM, then your
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frequency for checking that. Maybe all my guys are briefed at this start of
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every shift. Is your equipment fit for purpose? Is it identified, labeled
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up? Is it in a register. Do we need to do any continuity
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testing it? Do we need to do this? Do we get someone else
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in to do it, or do we do it ourselves. Some companies won't
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do that, even an office. They'll have someone come in every twelve or
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forty eight months or twenty four months, sorry, and just do a blanket
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of the whole office. Or you're really to a good point now because a
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lot of contractors, especially if you're just self employed and stuff, when you
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actually pick up a PARALLE tool, you'd basically carried out of dynamic risk assessment
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just when you picked it up and just start. You know, it's kind
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of like crossing the road. We look both ways. We don't think we're
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doing it, but we're doing theological contractors, this is easy. For non
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electrical contractors, this is very difficult. So I went, I went into
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work, and obviously I work in the railways, and I then said to
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my colleagues, right, pat testim, we're not supposed to be using the
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term. It's now is the in service inspection in tests, So I'm not
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laughingly acronym I know. And everyone saturday and went, can we just use
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the term PAT testing? I went, yes, of course, but the
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scope and extent needs to be considered. I was really pleased that they've done
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this because either them and say, okay, who does the Dyson head hand
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dryers, Well, that's done part of the fixed warren, isn't it.
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Noop, Nope, they stopped at the feed to the spur. There's a
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bit missing, and I think that's the cruxt of it. There's a piece
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missing. We need to get better at it. My biggest concern is the
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PAT testers will then potentially be exposing themselves to working on distribution boards doing isolations.
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Will they be checking the secondary side of a few? There becomes that
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do we want pat testers venturing into electricians world. It's actually a really good
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point because they've got to take the fuse but off, so to speak,
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if they want to test it stuff. And let's be perfect, there are
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guys out there doing PAT testing who are rocking hot at it but aren't qualified
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electricians. I actually never stopped thinking about that. That's right. Yeah,
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if you've got a protesting and they've got to start doing fixed equipment like on
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a in a train station, toilets, you've got hand rides. And I've
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met them and they are they are a beautiful creation of God could use that.
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Are obsessed with the caliber and quality of their pat testing, which is
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great, but they're not sparks. They're not sparks. So it's there's a
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health and safety risk there for electrical contractors. No, it's again opportunity.
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It's a really good point because by rights, I mean should they be taking
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that few spur off to then we start laying patests as working fuse boards?
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How do we define It's about defining the demarcation and assessing risks. So you
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assess the risk, you set your policy, and you define it. For
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me, I would rather my electricians do all of the testing all the way
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through to the final product, which I've briefed them on and said, right,
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if you're doing something and there's a fixed piece of equipment, you're going
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to do that when you're doing your ICRS, you're going to include the final
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equipment as well, so that we cover that. You can have a separate
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PPM regime which goes around plan preventive maintenance that goes around and just inspects these
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pieces of field equipment. It's made it better, but it's in highlighting the
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risk. But it's also made it worse because it's less descriptive and to want
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to shive you. There's so much stuff to do in workplace, as far
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as compliance and ELpH and safety, you just become tiresome of it. You
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just want to be told do this, do that, do that. Oh
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okay, I've got to tick the boxes. It may not be the right
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attitude, but unfortunately it is a culture that exists out there. For me,
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I like the risk assessment stuff. As long as you're communicating and being
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able to say to a judge or an HC inspector, everything is covered by
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an inspection regime somewhere and here are the records. You're fine, but I
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would most only recommend you get the fifth edition of the In Service Inspection PAT
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Testing Book. Fix Radio time to crack on. You're listening to the electrical
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show with Boss Professional. I'm Thomas Nagi and talking about pat testing. We're
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with Paul Meena today. Now pat testing, Paul, technically, it isn't
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actually compulsory, right, wrong, You need to have This is where Paul
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Meena want to take over the show. I'm going to make a cup of
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tea. Bye, see later. Okay, So there is a legal obligation
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to provide a safe work equipment just shut you down. There is a legal
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obligation to provide a safe work plant, equipment, workplace, etc. And
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pat testing comes under maintenance. So just to be clear, electricit Work Regulation
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five is where you would start in the electricit Work. But if you went
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higher than that, Health and Safety at Work Act Regulations two and three.
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If you did introduce a piece of electrical equipment and it caused a fatal shock
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and you were held bank to rights, you'd probably be done under Regulation three
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of Health and safetyt Work Act. There is duties also under the Management of
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Health and Safety Work Regulations. I think it's Regulation five Provision and Use of
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Workplace Equipment also known as pure Workplace Health and Safety Regulations ninety two, the
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Housing Act, the Housing Act of Scotland and Wales, the Electrical Equipment Safety
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Regulations two sixteen, Supply Machinery Safety two thousand and eight, Supply Goods Services
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Act nineteen eighty two, and the Plugs and Sockets Regulations of nineteen ninety four.
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All of these will be rolled you don't add a few more, no,
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no, no, All of these will be rolled up and you will
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be beaten to death by a lawyer or a solicit Yes, the man in
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a curly wig will try to insert them into you, and you must have
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a defense. Its maintenance. It doesn't have to be complex. There are
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many many pieces of legislation out there. And I scaffolder did the best training
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I've ever been on. And he turned around. He said elf and Safety
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at Work Act, and we went yeah. And then he listed out loads
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of other laws and he went, They're all load of rubbish and the only
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reason they're there is because nobody read the Health and Safety at Work Act.
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And he had this just brilliant way of talking about health and safety legislation.
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The fact of matters. You are legally obliged to provide safe workplace and equipment,
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whether you're an employer or you're an electrical contractor or you're on site.
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If you don't, and you have no mains regime, whether even it be
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dynamic assessment and some sort of log that says this is all the equipment I'm
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bringing onto an Let's just say, let's say we go to the ball builder
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site. We bring in a load of transformers and load of gear to help
17:25
them out. We are up all less site tempts. That's wonderful, but
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we need to have a log of that and make sure it's safe because if
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one the ball builders gets hurt from normal use and operation, we're done for.
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And it will be very easy because it's a site and all this legislation
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will be just used to question us, what did you do? How did
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you assess the risk to do this? How did you provide safe equipment?
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Did you do any due diligence? Did you do any visual inspections? Did
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you any combined tests or inspections? If you haven't done any of that,
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then you'll get the book front of you to apply to that. That was
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a very closed That was a very closed sentence. It was a long sentence,
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But there's no more regulations you want to throw in. That's CDM if
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you want, If you want to carry on it, sorry, who's actually
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held accountable because there's it's a duty holder, the duty holder who assesses risk.
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So you are your duty holder for yourself. If you come to work
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on my route, technically you're working under me as a duty holder, and
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I have to make sure that none thing that I provide to you will hurt
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you or your stuff about inaccurate testing, like the people who just go past
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past I mean, because I could then turn around, well I've had all
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my testing done, I've had it all done all nine Yeah, if you've
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had nine thousand appliances testing, you've got a little sticker on it. That
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company who's got who's created them and taken the money. They're the ones that
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are going to be in the doctors is as me as the business owner.
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I don't get shouted at then, or because do I then do they turn
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around and say, well did you check and vet that company? Who did
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that? And this is the worst thing. Now you're probably thinking, what
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neverhood of anyone ever go into jail for PAT testing anything else? Put it
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like this, PAT testing is an emot on the day. Yeah, so
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you can get your car emot emoted and you can drive out no problem.
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And the day later you have a fatal crash and you go back to the
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garage. Maybe nothing to doing, just it was a snapshot on that time.
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They saw a moment on the day that the circumstances changed, and that
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employee would then be done under Section two or Section three of Health and safety
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workout because they don't look for PAT test in legislation. They look for other
19:30
piece of legislation, So landlords electrical safety standards in the private rented Sector Regulations
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of twenty twenty they came into force, which which requires landlads to be doing
19:37
pat testing. So who's doing that? How many landlads know they need to
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be doing it? I don't think, Maddie no, And I mean yeah,
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it's we're only going to learn the impact of this until somebody gets caught
19:49
or there's a high profile prosecution. The trouble is is if you go on
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Google and look at prosecutions and look for EAWR Regulation five, they're always the
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highest legislation, which is the Health and Safety at work. Look at the
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minute you're getting paid for something, you're at work, one man band or
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not. How far do you take this? Yeah? How far? It's
20:07
dynamic. It's down to you. If if you're an electrical contractor and you're
20:11
employing skill qualified electrical persons, it's not beyond the realms of impossibility to be
20:15
able to say you've got some common sense about you. I have a log
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because one my equipment is valuable. Yeah, I need to know when it
20:21
was bought, So I've got a record and I can trace it so nobody
20:23
pinches it. And two before it's before we start our work. The dynamic
20:27
assessment every day is when you get your tools out, you set up your
20:30
site, you check all equipment to make sure it's safe, there's no damage,
20:33
etc. And you record and signed to say yes, I'm good to
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start now on smaller domestic stuff that probably doesn't happen on commercial industrial sort of
20:42
sites. You know yourself. If you don't have the RAMS Risk Assessment meta
20:45
statement and they're all signed up somewhere in there, there will be all equipment
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will be inspected and tests to have a PAT sticker, there will be a
20:51
register. If not, you won't be about to start on site. If
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you're checked. Let's wrap the show up next, as we're running out of
20:59
time here on fixed radio show. That can we just go and do some
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on the fixed radio stuff when this show is over Fixed Radio of the Builders
21:06
stationed the Electrical Show with Thomas Nagie on Fixed Radio the Builders Station. That's
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it for today's electrical show, where we've talked about PAT testing and whether it
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should be taken more seriously. And it's a good point you raised earlier in
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the show that, like any ICR goes up to the few spur and if
21:25
you've got like a hand or eye bolted on the wall, so the EICR
21:27
goes up to the spur. But pat testing, if you get a pat
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tester who's not an electrician which buy rights, they don't have to be,
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it's a really grey era. I've never ever stopped to think about that.
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I think of it as an opportunity. How do you stand out from the
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crowd. You offer that service, You level up your knowledge and say I'm
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going to do you EICR. But by the way, any fixed equipment,
21:47
I'm going to include that in my inspection regime for a small premium. But
21:52
immediately you stand out from the crowd because then the only other stuff that needs
21:55
to be done is the actual physical portable stuff that helps employers a lot.
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If you're offer that service, there's a there's a handy tip. Yeah,
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I actually it sounds really stupid, but I've never thought about that because you
22:07
don't think you think portum appliances, but stuff that's bolted to the wall isn't
22:11
part of any ICR. Yeah, it's a weird irony, but just to
22:12
because the book says it's not necessarily porable down tools with Trevor rich Is moments
22:18
away, so we're going to have to end it there. You can download
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