Advice on Portable Appliance Testing please

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- David G
  
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posted
17 years ago

Sat, May 27, 2006 11:29 AM

I have taken over the PA Testing for a building company I work for. They currently have a basic Parker Bell PAT, which probably covers the basic testing but I don't feel is very thorough. It passed an appliance which would run slowly and emit smoke. An extreme case and probably safe from personal safety point of view. It would also accept an incorrectly wired plug.

We run 3 or 4 sites at a time with equipment spread between them all on

110v. On looking around at the various testers available I have homed in on the Seward SuperNova Plus. This could be overkill since we do not have hundreds of appliances, but the advantage I see is being able to

monitor the appliance degradation with regard to renewal Run the appliance direct from the Tester to check performance Can use either 240 or 110 supply so that they can be tested where found. Keep a record of tests that can be d/l to computer.

I would appreciate anyones views or experience with this tester.

Before anyone says it, I realise that the first step is always a visual inspection.

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- Andrew Gabriel
  
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posted
17 years ago

Sat, May 27, 2006 12:20 PM

[Answering for the UK, as you mention 240V and 110V supplies.]

Get yourself booked on a C&G 2377 couse. It's 2 days and covers what you need to know to perform PAT testing, and to manage PAT testing (whether or not you are performing it). You do not need to be a qualified electrician to do this C&G course -- it is intended to be doable by anyone who knows how to wire a plug, and what the difference is between milliohms and megohms. The HSE recognise the two C&G 2377 certificates as indicating competence to perform PAT testing, and to manage PAT testing.

A PAT tester isn't the thing which decides if an appliance passes or fails -- it's the person operating it who does that. The PAT tester may provide information which is useful in coming to that decision, but it does no more than that. An item with an incorrectly wired plug should have failed its PAT test before it gets anywhere near the PAT tester. It is also common to perform a basic functional test of an appliance after the PAT test, just because it looks rather silly if you pass an electric drill as it has no safety defects, but it doesn't in fact work at all.

PAT testing should also take into account the way in which a tool is used and its suitability for the job. For example, you should fail a hot air paint stripper which has nothing wrong with it if it is actually being used as a hair drier by workman coming in from the rain, as it's clearly not fit for the purpose. A less clear example might be a 350W drill which is being used to drive a 110mm core borer or a plaster mixer, both of which are applications for which it is hopelessly underpowered and likely to go up in smoke. This shows the importance of inspecting the appliance where it is being used so you can see how it's being used, as far as possible (not always possible).