Get the best out of your Electrical Appliance Testing appointment
We want you to get the very best out of the visit our engineers make to your premises! So taking an hour to prepare for appliance testing can ensure that every appliance is made available, and prevent disruptive return visits.
Off-Premises Portable Appliances: First, consider whether your staff carry any company-owned portable electrical items away from your workplace. This might include laptops, phone and chargers for office staff, or 110v or 240v tools and appliances in a company vehicle for site workers. For many customers we arrange a testing day where all employees are required to bring their company-owned devices to the office for testing. For others, we visit their staff at an external site, and test company-owned tools and equipment while they work. If you have any questions about this, get in touch with our office on 01628 850650 to discuss. Also, read our article covering freelance and consultant workers here: ‘bring your own device’ policy.
Critical Appliances: If you have critical equipment such as servers on site, get in touch with us to arrange an out-of-hours or weekend visit, so that your appliances can be inspected outside of the usual hours of service.
Your Job vs Our Job: Our job is to test all available appliances. Your job is to ensure that we can get access to the appliances without having to clear the working area first. This is not only time consuming, it is also inappropriate for our engineers to handle your confidential work materials. The picture below shows a real-life example of some of the working conditions we encounter! Please ask your staff to tidy their work space, so that the appliances are easy to reach. If we can’t access appliances, we can’t test them!
Before the appliance testing visit: Our engineers occasionally miss the vacuum cleaner or floor polisher in the locked cleaning cupboard! Or, at some very secure sites, the security guard showing our engineer around isn’t certain which areas need testing. A few simple preparations will ensure we catch every single electrical appliance that you plan to have tested:
- Create an inventory of the electrical appliances and/or areas
- Try and ensure all equipment is accessible/visible and turned off before the technician arrives
- Inform your staff about the testing schedule to minimize disruptions, and explain that tidy desks are essential – if we can’t get to equipment, we can’t test it!
- Ask staff to report any known issues, such as frayed cables and evidence of overheating
- Ask staff to unplug and remove personal items so they are not included in the testing
OR
- Make it company policy for staff to report all devices and chargers that they bring to work, and include these in your regular appliance testing for a robust fire safety approach
During the appliance testing visit: Our engineers are used to working around employees during their working day. Testing can sometimes be planned to coincide with a meeting or coffee break that takes a member of staff away from their desk for a while. This requires the cooperation of each member of staff, and it’s best to give them plenty of warning so that our engineers can move quickly through your premises and keep disruption to an absolute minimum:
- Make sure all appliances, including those in kitchens and cupboards, are easily accessible and visible/signposted
- Remind staff that testing will be taking place, and ask them to cooperate with our engineers
- Remind them of company policy on personal items, such as phone chargers
- Ask staff to turn off and unplug work equipment ready for testing, if they are able
- Be ready for our engineers to recommend removal of any items that ‘fail’ testing – the usual suspects tend to be extension cables, or products from overseas suppliers whose plugs do not conform to British safety standards – read more about this here
After the appliance testing visit: You will receive a full report, generated by our calibrated testing meters and also thoroughly double-checked by us. Review the PAT testing reports and certificates and keep them safely as part of your Health & Safety records. Address any minor repairs that were highlighted, and replace any items that failed the inspection.
We take pride in providing a first class PAT Testing service in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, the Greater London area and other nationwide locations. Get in touch with our office team today for your free quotation!
