Electrical Socket Testing & Replacement We all hope that sockets have been installed by a sparky that knows what he is doing, so the chances of a wiring fault are low, so is there a need for you to be charged £39.99 to have a socket tester plugged in to every socket? Probably not. However, there is a good chance that a socket has been broken or damaged, and thus will need repair or replacement, and that is where your PAT tester comes in. Sockets do get broken, we see it a lot, and if we [...]

  In order to perform a Portable Appliance Test an appliance needs to be shut down and unplugged; this includes server systems. If you don't shut down the server the PAT engineer can't carry out the appropriate tests, so there is no way of knowing if the server is safe. PAT engineers who put labels on servers and record the appliances without testing anything are doing just that - that's not a safety check; it's simply an audit or asset register. If the server is not turned off all the engineer does is a very basic visual inspection, which doesn’t check the [...]

How will the PAT Test affect you? How will the PAT Test affect you? Hopefully not too much; if we work together we should be able to manage the process so there is as little disruption as possible to you and your team. One good way to do that is for you to have a ‘route plan’ in mind; plan a route around your site that is best suited to it, so we’re disturbing staff as little as possible. This is especially good for doctor’s surgeries that are open or factories with dangerous equipment in use. When we carry [...]

Check out the Latest Product Recalls This is where you can check out the latest product recalls, using this excellent tool created by our clever friends over at Electrical Safety First.  If you follow the news you will be aware of the importance of making sure your electrical appliances are registered such as the Whirlpool washing machines mass recall. If you have registered your appliances, if there are ever any safety notices placed on them, you can be informed. In the past when we bought electrical goods they had a postcard inside to complete, which registered the appliance to [...]

To make sure they are safe - dangerous appliances can give users electric shocks and start fires. PAT testing reduces the chances of that happening There are valid arguments for why you should get portable appliances tested, and there are arguments against getting appliances tested; usually created by people that don't understand why it is done.  Electrical appliances are made to perform a function; an electric heater is designed to warm a room, a television is intended to be watched, a drill is built to drill holes in walls - these are all valid reasons for an electrical appliance to be [...]

What is portable appliance testing? Portable Appliance Testing is also called PAT testing, so the question "What is PAT testing?" carries the same answer. There is actually a lot more content on that page so we recommend you go there if you really want to know the answer. If you simply want to get some portable appliance testing carried out, contact us - our details are below.  Portable appliance testing is a routine procedure including an inspection and possibly a series of tests conducted on electrical appliances to make sure they are safe to be used.  The purpose of the [...]

Get a PAT Test Certificate In order to comply with the Electricity at Work Regulations you need to ensure electrical equipment used at work are safe to use.  To do this for your business you need either a competent person in-house who has been on a suitable training course to carry out regular checks of your electrical equipment, or the option preferred by most, is to get a specialist Portable Appliance Tester in from another company to do the job for you.  To meet the legal obligations for maintaining the type of equipment you have, whether they are low [...]

Making sure your equipment continues to be safe shouldn't be too difficult, and in most cases you will pass PAT testing if you equipment is maintained; you see, as long as your equipment is as safe on the day of the test as it was the day it was made, the appliance is going to pass. Appliance testing ultimately is about confirming what we already know; confirming the appliance we are using is safe to be used - the fact we have not had an electric shock would suggest it is safe to be used, but a PAT test will make sure [...]

What is "PAT" - What does "PAT" stand for? 'PAT' is an acronym abbreviation shorthand or slang term that stands for 'Portable Appliance Testing' PAT is a process of inspecting and testing portable electrical appliances; a portable appliance is any electrical appliance that is powered from a plug and socket outlet.  The PAT process involves visually inspecting an appliance, and carrying out a sequence of PAT tests using a test machine. You can find more information about this on our PAT testing information page.  This makes the word portable misleading, as it has nothing to do with whether you [...]

The British plug and socket is one of the greatest designs to have ever come into this wonderful world we all live in, and despite their being so many options available to help us many of us seem determined to overload our sockets with too many plugs, for no apparent reason at all, except maybe laziness! The safety features on British sockets are amazing, for example it's virtually impossible for a child to push something into a socket because the live and neutral holes have safety shutters to stop anything being pushed into them. The only way to release the [...]