PAT Testing a ball pump

jake2194 · Nov 7, 2019

Good morning all,

I'm new to this forum and just wanted some advice please.

I've got this electrical ball pump that PE use which is a class 2 appliance, last year it passed the PAT test but this year it failed on the leakage test. Now I could do a class 2 test without a leakage test but I don't normally do these as I always normally do a class 2 soft test with a leakage limit. Just wanted to know if I should tell the PE team it failed and they have to get rid of it or if I can do the other class 2 test without a leakage test.

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Jake

Lucien Nunes · Nov 7, 2019

Welcome to the forum!

The point of PAT is to determine whether equipment remains safe to use; avoiding a test that something is expected to fail is cheating. Sometimes it is problematic to do a leakage test and one might need to omit it, but anything capable of being tested should be tested and must pass. If last year it passed a test that it now fails, it has probably deteriorated in some way that makes it dangerous or more likely to become dangerous.

I can't imagine it would be very expensive to replace but the point here is getting a clear picture of deterioration modes or possible testing inconsistencies. What type of leakage test are you doing and what is the leakage current reading? Is it possible that a different type of test was done last year and that is why the result is different, not because the pump has deteriorated? E.g. a substitute leakage test vs. a full voltage one?

westward10 · Nov 7, 2019

A leakage test is generally only carried out if the insulation resistance tests gives suspect results or for some reason an insulation resistance test cannot be carried out. It is generally not deemed a prescribed test.

Lucien Nunes · Nov 7, 2019

OK, good point. I am used to working with stuff that has high leakage and internal VDRs that spoil insulation tests, so in our industry the leakage test is pretty much unavoidable.

But the concept is still valid that if something passed a test and now fails the same test, there is reason to think that the test might have found a problem.