The great pat testing scam

[Dave 85]

Personally I charge £5 per item for PAT testing and I'm thinking of putting that up next time someone asks.
Why? Because I HATE it. Its the most boring mundane task in the world and personally one, I think, that an electrician is totally wasted on . Its a task that has to be repeated probably billions of times a year in this country, its perfectly simple to anyone with a days training, if someone wants to just label everything, they gonna do that whatever quals they got. Why would any electrician worth their salt actually want this kind of work?

I also think its largely a waste of time in many circumstances...I mean how many people have actually been killed by computers? Of course old electrical equipment liable to damage can become dangerous and should be monitered somehow but I'd say the vast majority of stuff subject to PAT testing will never become dangerous in its working lifetime.

Personally I'd say do away with forced PAT testing alltogether and bring back common sense and survival of the fittest.....

 

[SparkyJoe]

survival of the fittest.....

yeah sod the kids ;/

 

[Dave 85]

survival of the fittest.....

yeah sod the kids ;/

Exactly...All they ever do is laze about, smoke drugs and trash the capital from time to time....who needs em

 

[Philpot]

I have just read my copy of IET Wiring Matters Issue 43. There is a very interesting article about PAT testing. It references HSE INDG231 ( Google it and read) It looks to me like the death nell of PAT testing as we know it. No more every year, no more PAT test everything, no more need for lists. Everything is to be "risk assessed" if it doesn't need testing then a visual inspection is all that is needed. Will the customers ever find out?

Philpot

 

[Dave 85]

I have just read my copy of IET Wiring Matters Issue 43. There is a very interesting article about PAT testing. It references HSE INDG231 ( Google it and read) It looks to me like the death nell of PAT testing as we know it. No more every year, no more PAT test everything, no more need for lists. Everything is to be "risk assessed" if it doesn't need testing then a visual inspection is all that is needed. Will the customers ever find out?

Philpot

Sounds very sensible

 

[topcat]

All sounds good but the HSE can say what they like if your insurace say you have to have it PAT tested are you going to take the risk of not been covered by them

 

[Philpot]

That is true but I'm not sure that many Insurance Co's are interested in rewriting the HSA recommendations. The HSA are after all the official word on safety. Mind you it is as well to watch the "small print".
It does seem unnecessary to treat a engineering factory floor and a hotel room as having the same risk.

It won't stop the cold callers tell the public that everything must be PAT tested every year.

 

[Guest111]

Had a good friend of mine ring me up last year and tell me that the E H O had been to his business and was not happy that stuff was not pat tested andthen came the question "I know youve got a lot on your plate at the minute but could you get me some of them green stickers and fill them in so I can stick em on my machines?" Needless to say we are not such good friends anymore!

 

[PASS Ltd]

Pat Testing labels on filing cabinets is the best thing that i have seen so far. Must find that in the code of practice.......

 

[moospark]

I've seen lots of desks equipotential, so maybe?

 

[Risteard]

I've seen distribution boards with PAT test pass labels. Perhaps they didn't like the standard periodic inspection labels?

 

[oldtimer]

Got a job a year ago when the PIR highlighted that the baynot cap fitting was broken fine then a year later highlighted there was no earthing to the gas and water ? ? ? So I found out that they were doing a rolling PIR ie 20% a year only problem is this is meant for an industrial and commercial environment not a domestic seems they make up the rules as they go along and there was no PIR sticker

 

[shellyanne]

I recently went back to a school I had tested for years, they decided to go with a cheaper 60p company that approached them (although I offered a competative price) they finished the school in 2 days 8.30 - 4.30 and tested over 700 items, 1 man. I was back just to test the items they would not test as they are at height and they couldnt do it (no risk assessment for working at height and no 3 pin 16amp leads to test the equipment). Well I did my calculations and they would have had to test 1 peice of equipment every
1min 15secs!
I have been doing this for years and always work to a high standard and I can only do a max of 210 if I arrive early, work later and it includes a large it siute, and feel knacked afterwards. I couldnt do this on a daily basis so god knows how they can do 350 a day. They are obviously another company that just goes round putting stickers on with no formal visual inspection. It really upsets me that they can do this in schools, I like to go home at the end of the day knowing I did a great job and made it a safer place to work for everyone.:cheesy:

 

[RISElectrical]

I have been told (by a spark that in general opinion is highly rated) that with the new seward tester he has that he is averaging 600 a day, working 8-4 in offices etc. Bluetooth printer clipped to belt, and he says the tester will test an appliance in 10 seconds max.

food for thought

 

[Silly Sausage]

Heehee...Respect, that just about beats my all time daily record.
He must be awesomely fast at opening & closing plug tops.
and have lightningly fast fingers to input the data!

It's the one job that I'll never do again.

 

[RISElectrical]

By all account the tester has most items pre programmed in, press ac on the keypad and it come up with ac adaptor and remembers your last used location, for example office.

if.... and it is an if... what he says is true then 8 hours less lunch and breaks is 7 hours = 420 minutes. 600 tests at 10 seconds a test = 100 minutes leaving 320 minutes to unplug and plug back in appliances and check fuses.

This equates to approx 30 seconds to unplug, check fuse, plug back in again and attach pre printed sticker.

Now looking at this it could be possible however in a 7 hour working day it would be too much i think. he is probably under estimating how much he does or how long he works.

600 x 70p = 420 a day
600 x 80p = 480 a day
600 x £1 = £600 a day

and so on. personally i would work a 10 hour day for £600 thank you please.

 

[Silly Sausage]

By all account the tester has most items pre programmed in, press ac on the keypad and it come up with ac adaptor and remembers your last used location, for example office.

Now that would be quite handy.
Assuming all the items are already tested with a scan code label which matches the items on his machine, we're in appliance testing heaven.
I suppose he can get a perfect earth probe contact, in millisecs, on every class I item as well?!?
At least 50% of the items I've ever done, would fail on 1st contact!

 

[Engineer54]

I have been told (by a spark that in general opinion is highly rated) that with the new seward tester he has that he is averaging 600 a day, working 8-4 in offices etc. Bluetooth printer clipped to belt, and he says the tester will test an appliance in 10 seconds max.

food for thought

Yeah, and the Moon is made of Cheese!! Just another Rhinestone ''PASSING'' Cowboy!! lol!!:cheesy:

Does that 10 seconds include the load test as well?? lol!!

 

[Des 56]

I can well imagine myself doing pat testing for a living

Test items 1+2+3 in the first half hour then out for a smoke break
Test items 4+5+6, then the boredom means yet another smoke break
By then with a bit of luck, it should be time for the scheduled smoke break

The problem I see with pat testing and getting the quantities out is this draconian no smoking ban

 

[theroadblock]

haha my boss would have a field day with you guys posting 'PAT testing' hes an old grump and would bring you up on you calling it 'portable appliance testing testing' haha!

 

[Silly Sausage]

Actually...In Service Inspection & Testing of Electrical Equipment

 

[UNG]

I have been told (by a spark that in general opinion is highly rated) that with the new seward tester he has that he is averaging 600 a day, working 8-4 in offices etc. Bluetooth printer clipped to belt, and he says the tester will test an appliance in 10 seconds max.

food for thought

When I see claims like this I do wonder about the quality of the end product and if the results could be relied on if something happened resulting in a visit to court then people would see how highly rated he is by the judge

By all account the tester has most items pre programmed in, press ac on the keypad and it come up with ac adaptor and remembers your last used location, for example office.

if.... and it is an if... what he says is true then 8 hours less lunch and breaks is 7 hours = 420 minutes. 600 tests at 10 seconds a test = 100 minutes leaving 320 minutes to unplug and plug back in appliances and check fuses.

This equates to approx 30 seconds to unplug, check fuse, plug back in again and attach pre printed sticker.

Now looking at this it could be possible however in a 7 hour working day it would be too much i think. he is probably under estimating how much he does or how long he works.

600 x 70p = 420 a day
600 x 80p = 480 a day
600 x £1 = £600 a day

and so on. personally i would work a 10 hour day for £600 thank you please.

No matter how it's dressed up it's still only 40ish seconds per appliance. No allowance made for moving between rooms or crawling under desks and there is no way you can input the info into the tester and do the test in 10 seconds even if you skip some of the tests

 

[Tonkatoy27]

I have been told (by a spark that in general opinion is highly rated) that with the new seward tester he has that he is averaging 600 a day, working 8-4 in offices etc. Bluetooth printer clipped to belt, and he says the tester will test an appliance in 10 seconds max.

food for thought

The description sounds very much like the Seaward Primetest 300 that I use for the local schools. Auto increment number, auto spell description, blutooth printer etc etc. 10 seconds is utter rubbish. It takes nearly 5 seconds to send the label info from the tester to the printer, 10 seconds if you want a bar code. A good visual inspection should take longer than the electrical testing anyway.

My absolute all time best was 320 appliances in one 8.5 hour day, no breaks, 10 mins for lunch and shattered by the end. It was a whole line of IT suites with 80 appliances in each though. Lucrative week that.

 

[Tonkatoy27]

I'll bet all cheap portable appliance testing companies never give a thought to the fixed appliances they are supposed to test at the same time............. let alone microwave leakage testing.

 

[RISElectrical]

All i was doing was passing on the info that somebody gave to me regards what "he" does in a day. personally we charge £1.90 per test minimum and our PAT bloke will do 100 a day.

 

[Deleted member 9648]

Thought I'd ressurect this thread as I'm back in the same school (repairing lights) and the PAS (portable appliance stickering) boys are in again. I have covered the company name in the pics for legal reasons but suffice to say they are a National Testing Service.
This appliance was 'tested' yesterday.....the guys are on site 6hrs a day and are stickering 300 per man per day.
I also noted that this particular pile of power supplies also had plugs with unsleeved pins on several units,which are used by the pupils.

 

[Badged01]

Unfortunately until we can get the client out of the mentality that cheapest is best value for money this will always be a problem. Like with EICR's, they just want the piece of paper to shift risk to whoever has done it .....

 

[Unregistered]

Flag it up with the powers that be and drop them in the sht

 

[ian.settle1]

Flag it up with the powers that be and drop them in the sht

What powers to be? PAT testing doesnot have a scam who regulates it unlike the scams for Part P.

 

[Tonkatoy27]

What powers to be? PAT testing doesnot have a scam who regulates it unlike the scams for Part P.

By 'the powers that be' I meant the school, usually head of maintenance who would of given them the contract in the first place. The schools I work at are very hot on electrical safety and would jump on the company if they had charged for non existant testing.

 

[gazj82]

I personally tell people they will definitely find someone cheaper than me right from the off, it will be my usual hourly rate, take it or leave it. I don't do a per item price, BUT I will change fuses, repair what can be repaired etc as I go along. Most go with this, they don't want a stack of failed stuff at the end of the day.

I can do between 50 and 80 items a day depending on what's being tested. If someone is doing 300 they ain't doing them properly! I doubt my tester could do 300 in 8hrs if it was testing continuously!

 

[ryan1988]

I work with a company and we get a lot of PAT contracts, what I see from some company's is a joke and laughable . Was finishing a large site the other day that has taken a month to complete and was told I'm not as fast as thr guys they had last year. But they asked what I was doing when I was opening plugs, checking terminations fuse ratings etc as the others so called "engineers" didn't do that at all.
I found old appliances that had been tested by this other firm for the past 3 years with the cardboard on the plug from a new purchase... never taken off, uninsulated pinned plugs not changed and just passed etc, it was pardon the pun shocking at the standard I was seeing.

The H&S contact was in shock when I went to him at the end of the job saying, well me and my colleagues have finished....... We have changed 456 fuses to the correct rating, done 100 plug changes and 120 plug refits.....and failed 45 items..... he couldn't believe it as the other company had passed everything every year without any problem..

The thing is PAT testing isn't the most complex work in the world so there are so many cowboys out that just go around and sticker everything and don't even test properly......making a joke out of the people who do it properly and take it as a serious job/ contract

 

[Geordie Spark]

Here ye gan Ryan ...... Just for you!! >>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFCoaNjZqUM

 

[ryan1988]

Im a PAT tester and these comments are just what the trade needs.All too often i get to site and iam immediatly accused of having the "easiest job in the world","money for old rope" or "do you just put stickers on them?"
I work for a large company with many big contracts and we pride ourselves in doing the job properly,i earn just above minimum wage doing the job and believe pay is also a factor in the lowering of quality.we cant compete with the 50p firms.It would be a big help if the customer had a better insight in to what a good tester does and the reasons why,alot of places i visit just let me get on with it and sign my jobsheet when i say im done without checking a single appliance or shadowing me whilst im at work.Im sure most firms have it done just for insurance purposes.
I really like my Job and chose to do it.For me a PAT tester should be qualified to atleast city&guilds 2377,be registered with a governing body and have an on-site assessment.the rule about competent person is far to vague and has given licence to any employee to carry out tests.
firms are not going to pay £2 per item to a fully qualifed and experianced PAT engineer when "John"the part time caretaker can do it for nothing.
every post i see regarding PAT testing is negative due to poor customer experiances from incapable testing firms.

8

I also work for a firm that gets a lot of large PAT contracts, and we take PAT testing as serious and professinally as EICR and PIR work. Every time I go on a PAT job I'm instantly thought also of having the easy job of the day etc. Our company also carry out quality checks on myself and fellow employees. They go to random jobs you have done and check the quality of the work and give a fully quality assessment. I have seen one of the supervisors go ballistic because someone who was employed didn't carry out a fully visual of the cable of 10m extension reel, he told this other emplpyee to the job properly or not at all.

It does annoy me when I meet people who say all PAT testers are cowboys when a lot of them do the job properly and professionally well the ones I have worked with anyway.

 

[Risteard]

uninsulated pinned plugs not changed and just passed

Whilst such plugs may not be reused, existing ones do not need to be taken out of service. See the Code of Practice.

 

[ryan1988]

Whilst such plugs may not be reused, existing ones do not need to be taken out of service. See the Code of Practice.

I stand corrected

 

[kenuk]

Whilst such plugs may not be reused, existing ones do not need to be taken out of service. See the Code of Practice.

Indeed, but if you care about customer safety surely they really should be - I could not sleep at night knowing I left a known risk.

 

[Rocky1964]

I can sleep at night knowing I've not hurt (or potentially hurt anyone) through my actions!
I believe these guys are under enormous pressure to achieve targets but it could be their kids in another school using kit with stickers on (which is what's being done!)