pat testing a storage heater

[oldtimer]

Not saying its not portable how do you test a cooker one ring at a time on a pat tester that uses a 13a socket as its input just seems mad to me

When they wrote the regs fixed wiring came under I&T with all appliances coming under ISI&TEE (what people call PAT) fixed appliances were always there but were to put it mildly ignored because PAT was the buzzword but now FA are not getting ignored and as the lecturer explained to me it has opened a big can of worms with regards who can test them because the colleges will not authorise dedicated PAT testers to do this as they say there is no grey area you have to be a qualified electrician and this then bumps on to what the Schemies are up to plus the insurance companies who initially drove this in the first place add that to the HSE executive commissioning a report on the industry and the outcome may be that ISI&TEE will have to be relaunched to eradicate the PAT myth ie portable equipment only. It does not help as there is no legal obligation to get electrical equipment tested and you have a mess

Just to add you can test FAs with a Kewtech test plug with test leads
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[sparks1973]

Again I maybe wrong here, but I thought the Earth leakage test which is associated with electric strength test was a manufacturing test and is not needed in a normal PAT testing regime

thats dielectric strength testing Malc...or `flash` testing and yes...this is normally carried out at the manufacturing stage...or after repairs have been carried out..its done at 1.5KV for class 1s...and 3KV for class 2s.....your run/load/earth leakage tests are/can be carried out as an addition to the mandatory `dead` tests....

 

[hazelm]

Portable appliance testing is for portable items of equipment not cookers and storage heaters the clue is in the portable bit

Portable Appliance Testing is a misnomer.

Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment includes both portable appliances and fixed wired (connected by a flex outlet) appliances. These all have the same tests and are fully described in the IEE book. If anyone rents out a property, both types of appliances should eb tested before the property is rented. The landlord is responsible.

 

[hazelm]

Sorry guys not getting this a pat tester has a built in socket to plug the piece of kit onto ?

Any other item comes under a fixed wiring test as far as i am concerned

Fixed wiring tests are for installations starting at the consumer unit and ending in sockets, flex outlets, switches and cooker outlets.

Ignore the "PAT testing" bit!!!! This is a misnomer.

Read the Code of Practice for Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment. This states very clearly that testing needs to be done not only on electrical equipment connected by plug and socket but also on appliances connected by a flexible wire to a flex outlet.

PAT Testing is just a part of it. Some PAT testers are good enough to be able to record results of hard wired appliances and are well worth it.