Electrical Testing FAQs

There has always been a requirement to satisfy Health & Safety legislation. In 1989 The Electricity at Work Regulations came into force, which clarifies the need to maintain electrical systems safely.

So there has always been the need and test data results will form a major part of your defense should an accident occur which leads to prosecution.

You are responsible to make sure that you and your staff comply with Health & Safety legislation. However, it is usually dependent on the terms of your lease as to whether you or your landlord pays for testing to be carried out on the electrical installation.

Usually, if you are on a full repairing lease then the cost will fall to you. Portable Appliance testing will always be at your expense.

Unless and until you suffer an accident then probably nothing will happen. However, remember that maintenance of a safe electrical system is a legal requirement.

Therefore a preventable accident could lead to prosecution, for which there will be no insurance cover.

You may also find that an insurance loss adjuster could make much of the fact that you may not have maintained the system adequately which could have led to the claim. Again, this could lead to an unsuccessful claim and a costly experience.

We hold records of all clients, together with re-test dates on our database and remind clients when re-tests are due.

Costs are based on a cost per circuit or appliance tested multiplied by the numbers involved. This, together with the existing condition of and accessibility to the system will determine the overall cost.

Please contact us to assess your portable appliance testing or electrical testing needs further.

Yes, provided you have the right test equipment and suitably competent and trained staff who can carry out the work.

In practice, experience has shown that even with suitably competent staff that in practice time is an issue and PAT testing often gets left at the back of the “to-do” list.

It is usually also not cost efficient to undertake PAT testing in house when you consider the cost of contracting out versus the cost of utilising in-house staff who are often pulled off such tasks to attend breakdowns. Do the sums.

The Electricity at Work Regulations apply to all businesses from multi-nationals to sole traders. So you still need to comply.

The results of previous tests should be considered in a programme of risk assessment. In the absence of such history then the following intervals may be considered as a guide.

But remember that other factors such as the ability of site staff to identify any potential faults or damage and take suitable action. Mechanical damage and abuse must also be taken into consideration.

• Low-risk 24-monthly or more
• Medium risk 12-monthly
• High risk (ie workshop equipment) 6-monthly
• Very high risk (ie site equipment) 3-monthly

Our engineers are always attired in a smart ETS corporate uniform, showing an ETS logo. They also all carry official ETS ID cards which can be shown upon request.

Our engineers are very mindful that the smooth running of your business is of paramount importance to you, and will work around your requirements in order to keep any disruption to an absolute minimum.

Our detailed reports include a breakdown of all items tested in a clear, concise schedule to identify each item by number and location, followed by a detailed report showing all test results.

In addition, we provide a “failure sheet” which includes details of any failures encountered, together with all / any observations made by our engineer for the purpose of clarity.

Test date and next recommended test dates will also be shown. All this data can be provided in either a “Bound” hard copy or be emailed to you in a digital format (or both).

Yes, experience has shown that the majority of failures encountered are a result of a “visual” fault being identified.

To remedy this situation, our engineers will replace damaged plug tops, re-make badly made-off plug-tops or de-rate fuses as necessary in order to enable a “pass” whenever possible.

Good question, this crops up often. At ETS we operate a database program that we wrote in-house which we designed specifically to manage visit schedules.

Each engineer is issued “due jobs” for all clients in a close geographical area and will ring each site ahead of visiting to schedule a mutually convenient visit date and time.

The database is updated automatically when each job is “cleared down”. So that next due dates are always maintained accurately for each and every site we visit. Many of our multi-site client managers benefit from the fact that we can provide a progress or re-test due-date “snap-shot”, by site, at any time.

And because we have complete control of all records we can very easily provide duplicate copies of test data for insurance or H&S compliance purposes.

If individual terminals cannot be shut down for a short period during the working day on a planned and scheduled basis, then we can undertake testing either at night, or during weekends in liaison with your IT Management – this we do for a small number of clients. This service may involve additional cost.

Very often in fact, by discussion, we can find that a mutually workable solution can be found to enable this work to be undertaken during normal working hours, sometimes with early starts or late finishes.

If the Server(s) are under the control of an IT department and are located in an area only accessible by the IT specialists, then we will carry out a through visual inspection of all the equipment, together with an “earth bond” test of all extraneous metalwork and chassis or earthed metal parts of all class 1 appliances.

This will be recorded as a limitation, but one which is acceptable on the basis that only qualified specialists have access to the area.