My Wife is a member of a sewing group that meets every week at a local village hall. They all take along their sewing machines and someone has said that they should have their machines PAT tested.
Whilst I agree that a regular safety check would do no harm and it only cost circa 4 or 5 pounds I don't believe that this is an actual legal requirement..
Unless that is someone knows different...?????
You should check the Terms and Conditions of Hire issued by the village hall Management or with their Safety Representative. It is probably a requirement of hire that any equipment bought onto the premises must be safe, without risk of harm and conforming to relevant "Safety Regulations". PAT testing is the best way of ensuring this but the very least you should do is to get the equipment visualy checked by a "Competent Person" particulaly concering the condition of the leads and plugs. John Weale
Does new stuff have to be tested ? - i.e. is it reasonable to assume that new stuff is safe when bought new ?
Thanks,
Nick
You shouldn't "assume" anything. It depends where it was purchased from or if it was damaged during transit or is otherwise unsuitable for its intended use. If it is "Work Equipment" then you should carry out sufficient checks to ensure that it is safe to use and conforms to the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER). Plenty of free information on this from the HSE website:
When I worked at school, I asked what were the requirements of testing and was told that the _major_ part of the test was visual. As long as this stage passed the test a rudimentary check was made of the electrical connections.
Dave
PAT is not a legal requirement, but is a convenient way to show compliance with legal requirements. However, unless the sewing group is selling what they make, I can't see that there are in a workplace or that there are any legal requirements for H&S that apply to them as a sewing group. OTOH, the operators of the hall will have H&S obligations and may pass them onto the users in their terms and conditions of hire.
Colin Bignell
What's happened is that new regs have come into force requiring village halls and the like to abide by the same safety rules as workplaces. A certain well-known company is going around charging large fees for badly cobbled together and alarmist reports which cause uninformed managers to (a) panic, (b) spend lots of money unnecessarily, and (c) do things like imposing regulations on equipment brought onto the premises. All that is actually required is to prove that you have made an assessment of the situation and established appropriate procedures.
In practical terms, if sewing machines these days contain electronics, it's most unwise to apply the large voltages that PAT testers produce, and a simple visual test of plugs, fuses, and leads is all that should be done, plus maybe the PAT earth test. Whether you can persuade the hall managers that that is sufficient, and that it is acceptable for a "competent person" without a NICIEC 666 on their forehead to do it is another matter.
I read somewhere in the government speel that it _is_ acceptable to assume that new equipment is OK until the next round of testing, but if it come from a boot sale ...!
Chris
ac1951 wrote in news:e76ac5dc-54cc-46ae-b273- snipped-for-privacy@r31g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:
Links from this page may help:
I suppose at the end of the day PAT testing is as you say a convenient way of showing compliance and passing the buck should the worst happen
If a tenannt or worker ever recieved a shock from one of my electrical items I would want the PAT documentation,as it would show a certain level of dilgence.Which would you rather have to say to a court "I had a look at the item in question myself and it all seemed fine" or "heres the PAT test documentation from xyz ltd showing the item was tested 10 months ago,and was found to be electrically safe".
When looked at from this point of view I can see why most companies/ organisations would want a PAT test done,but I also fear that sometimes this can takeaway the common sense in some people (ie the kettle must be safe,it's got a pass sticker on it,never find the damaged flex)
Martin
A "competent person" for this purpose is someone with C&G 2377/002 (In-service inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment) certificate. This is intended to be attainable by non-electricians, and is actually not held by many electricians. Prerequisits are the ability to wire a plug, and knowing the difference between milliohms and megohms (which is the bit many electricians on the courses struggle with). The course and exam are done all in one day at a local technical college. It is normally done with 2377/001 (Management of In-service inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment) on the previous day. If you engage electricians to undertake PAT testing, you should require them to bring their 2377/002 certificate on the first day and make a copy of it for your files, and you should hold a 2377/001 certificate.
This is down to a risk assessment. Generally it's probably true. A set of rules I drew up for a former employer required no testing of new computer equipment supplied with a power cord with molded-on plugs/connectors, providing it had a visual inspection and was scrapped at 4 years old. (The cost of PAT testing a 4 year old PC is generally more than it's worth.)
You can do most of a PAT test with no test equipment at all. Most failures are picked up by the visual inspection, and most of these can't be picked up by test equipment. Electricians who haven't been trained to perform PAT tests generally don't do the visual inspection part -- if you see someone start a PAT test by connecting the appliance to a tester, that's a really obvious sign they don't know what they're doing.
A lot of stuff at boot sales is actually illegal to sell e.g. things with unsheathed pins on 13A plugs. Ironically, that's not a PAT fail, but it's an offence to sell anything with such a plug on it under the Plugs and sockets regulations.
I did a PAT course in, ISTR, 1980-something at the Yorkshire Electricity depot in Leeds, before C&G ran a course, and gained a certificate from YEB. This was arranged by my employer, who, a year or two later, decided that outsourcing of testing was much cheaper than using me.
In later years, the whole system seemed to fall down - we had equipment many years out of test. We had lots of bases where equipment was notionally held, but in practice most of the stuff was held in vehicles or even at officials' homes (or even temporarily loaned to members of the public!). Rentokil (the contractor) just couldn't cope. I've no idea what happens these days - I retired (early!) nearly three years ago.
I would not expect anything I had inspected to cause a problem, unless it had been badly mistreated. However, if it did, I would say that I am a qualified engineer with a number of years' experience in the electricity supply industry and all portable equipment gets a quick visual inspection every time I use it and a more formal test (I have my own equipment for both PAT and installation testing) at regular intervals, as laid down in the risk assesment.
Colin Bignell
Would anyone expect the 'hall' to be responsible for someone being injured while using a machine they'd brought with them? No matter what the cause?
If so I'd have thought the electrical safety to be well down the list.
After all those replies I bet you're really glad you asked :) (the words stirring and hornets nest spring to mind) David
Nonsense.
A PAT test doesn't use any voltage higher than the supply for insullation and leakage. The test current used to test earth continuity can damage the earth connection on electronic equipment but a testing kit suitable for this allows the test current to be set to a suitable low value.
If you are refering to a Flash Test this should never be done on any equipment as part of a routine PAT test.
It uses 500VDC IIRC. However an insulation test shouldn't be performed on IT equipment (unless it claims conformance to BS EN 60950 in which case it will withstand this without damage). A leakage test (measuring the actual leakage in use) should be performed instead.
Untrained testers with test equipment capable of performing a flash test (typically 4.5kV) may well use it out of ignorance during a PAT test.
The majority of dedicated PAT units employ 500v dc for the insulation test. This is carried out between Phase & Neutral joined together and the earth/exposed conductive parts via the earth wander lead. Some use around 3kV for a flash test but this should only be carried out after major refurbishment as it overstresses the insulation and can lead to premature failure
What is being overlooked is the fact that it is the PEAK voltage of the mains supply that the insullation has to withstand , plus a safety margin.
A nominal 240v supply has a peak voltage of 340v which is easily exceeded if a mains spike occurs at the supply peak.
As 500v dc is less than 50% above the peak of a 240v sine wave. (I would think that 500v was chasen as a test voltage with this in mind). Any mains equipment should be able to handle this. If it can't it should be scrapped!
Flash testing should not be used by anyone carrying out a PAT test.
quoted text -
No one is overlooking anything. The matter is well documented in an IEE code of practice *, recognised by HSE and others. The 500v is in line with the 500v used for circuits operating at up to
500v (see section 7 of BS7671)*The IEE code of practice for in-service testing (PAT) gives full details of the various requirements, inspection, tests to be applied including the use of flash testing, which as I said is only to be carried out after major refurbishment of an item of equipment, not as a matter of routine. Reading this book would be a good start to deciding how best to comply with the requirements of the hall management.
Hi,
Have a look at this, print it out and pass it on:
cheers, Pete.
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