Help with PAT Testing

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Permalink Reply by Jake Moore on 30 September 2008 at 11:21pm

Firstly you should find that most community centers should insist on you getting your equipment PAT tested now.

You will need to get a competent person with a tester to test all the equipment, you should have literally all the equipment that gets plugged into the mains tested, inc extension leads, amps, powered speakers, projectors etc.

With regards costs it can totally depend on how much you have to get tested and if you can find someone local to do it, but i could cost from £1-£3.50 per item to get tested, so can get expensive but is now necessary.

Hope this helps.

Jake

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Permalink Reply by Colin on 30 September 2008 at 11:28pm

I was about to reply with a very similar post. Organise a day for the tester to come, and make sure that every piece of electrical equipement that the Church owns is tested. It also includes anything that anyone brings in that gets plugged into the mains. That's going to be the whole music group, and CD players brought in for toddler groups, coffee machines, kettles etc etc

There's no law that requires this to be done yet, but in today's increasingly litigeous scoiety anyone who has any form of public liability insurance will insist upon it to protect themselves.

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Permalink Reply by Martin Cliffe on 1 October 2008 at 4:56am

I'm a trained PAT tester through work... most public buildings now require electrical apparatus to be PAT tested; that is, anything that plugs directly into a mains socket. If you've got a lot of equipment it may work out cheaper for someone in your church to train up to do it, and then just hire a tester for a day or so - I did my training through First Stop Safety who were very helpful (it's just a distance learning thing). If there's not so many items, contact a local electrician or someone to do it (may be worth asking local schools etc who does theirs), but be aware that they'll charge a fee per item, and if an item fails, you'll have to pay again to get it retested, even if it's just the IEC lead that's failed and you replace it. On top of that, testing needs to be done regularly, usually in between 6 months and 2 years intervals, and the paperwork can be quite tedious!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Kendal on 1 October 2008 at 7:50am

Thanks for all your help on this chaps. Thats given me a really good start. I think I'll do some investigating locally and also tot up how many items need testing. I had a quick look on Google last night and found one company who sold a portable PAT tester (does the PAT tester need testing regularly as well? :-) ), for less than £300. I've no idea if it was approved in any way.

I'll also investigate the training, one of my supplementary questions was "what constitutes a competent person?" - I don't suppose my Radio Amateur License qualifies :-)

Thanks chaps!

Mark

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Permalink Reply by martyn burt on 1 October 2008 at 1:42pm

Yes, you can buy the tester yourself, and it may save money in the longrun especially if your church has lots of kit, but obviously the person using it will need to have some training. Perhaps someone in your cong who is a sparkie or school technician?

Alternatively, before my church bought one, I needed to have some of my kit tested as I was playing at venues that needed to know all equipment was tested, so I made sure I took it into work when all the office kit was being done!

Ideally, everything that the church uses needs to be tested, but it is VERY difficult getting all those who bring stuff each week they play to bring it when you are testing (and don't forget footpedals with power leads!). However, I don't want to be the person to say 'you can't play your amp today or use your footpedals cos they haven't been tested...' but I guess it could come to that!

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Permalink Reply by Martin Cliffe on 1 October 2008 at 2:58pm

The PAT tester needs calibrating, usually once a year, at a cost of ~£50. The PAT-IT tester (£259 ex VAT) that I'm most familiar with is a pretty rugged and reliable bit of kit that's easy to use - anyone who can wire a plug probably constitutes a competent person, although there is a distance learning training course for anyone who wants to be "trained" (I use the term loosely) available.

Disclaimer: I'm in no way associated with First Stop Safety (indeed I work for Staffs County Council!), it's just that their products are the only ones I have experience with!

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Permalink Reply by David Bull on 5 October 2008 at 4:26pm

I thought Pat was a postman with a red van and a black and white cat!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Hindle on 6 October 2008 at 10:56am

You have to be careful when getting things pat tested, i have seen people place stickers on the wrong things i.e a radio mic with a seperate transformer had its sticker on the reciever which does not have any mains going throught it, the sticker should be on the transformer. If this is happening don't use them again. I went on a one day course which cost about £200, the company i went with was CJW Testing, it seemed to be one of the cheapest that did a course that was convenient for me but they do them all over the country. I got a computerised pat tester which records all the tests and downloads them to a computer so you can just print them off. hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Kendal on 6 October 2008 at 11:05am

Thaks for all your replies folks. They've increased my knowledge no end which is great. We've now got a local fellow coming to do the testing, hopefully this week so we should be OK.

Thanks also for the comments on the training and the testers.

Sadly, all be it for very good reasons, it's one more reason to make "cottage industry" level stage lighting and PA impractical which is a shame. I used to have some lighting and sound kit which we took out and did stuff for churches in the area. Hopefully what we did was a blessing to them. It was barely viable in those days, almost certainly not at all now, sigh! such is life!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Kendal on 6 October 2008 at 12:02pm

I think your right! Unfortunately I've got to get hold of him to come around to my house to test my PA and music kit! :-)

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Permalink Reply by Marion Martin on 6 October 2008 at 11:53am

Does all this apply only in England or is it in Scotland too? We hire out our building to various user groups and I'd be interested to know if we should require them to test their gear.

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Permalink Reply by Martin Cliffe on 6 October 2008 at 5:41pm

It's not law, but it's certainly a very good idea - if a piece of electrical equipment someone brought in caught fire, say, or it electrocuted someone, there could be problems with insurance claims if it hadn't been properly tested.

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