Portable Appliance Testing?

I'm sure several people on cam.misc know lots about this sort of mallarchy, and perhaps could be kind enough to comment:

Someone wants "PAT certificates for plug-ins" for my jazz orchestra to perform at a wedding in September in a venue in the City of London. Oh, and liability insurance for £10m!

So, how many stupid hoops do I have to jump through to provide "certificates" for my equipment, given that there appear to be no actual

*rules* that prescribe how often (and to what extent) something should be tested?

My equipment comprises:

1 x second-hand Soundcraft mixer desk (external power supply unit) 1 x keyboard amplifier (second hand) 1 x powered stage wedge monitor (new) 2 x powered PA speakers on stands (old, belonging to my trombonist) 2 x microphones and flexes 17 x 15W 240VAC music stand lights manufactured by myself, daisy-chained in groups using IEC 'kettle lead' connectors.

And just to confuse things further:

An electric piano belonging to the pianist A double bass amplifier belonging to the bassist

Damn all this litigious, bureaucratic bullshit. I'm not an employer, we're just a collection of people making music five times a year.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Kilpatrick
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In article , Michael Kilpatrick scribeth thus

I can give you far worse examples of H&S gone mad..

I 'd expect the 10 mill insurance to be your biggest problem, why ever are they insisting on that amount?..

They expecting you to blow so hard you'll literally bring the house down;?..

I'd expect a phone round of a few electrical firms on Monday would see this being done for a reasonable price but if you want a more definitive answer uk.d-i-y is the best place to post...

Reply to
tony sayer

but you might set fire to thenplace and kill some of the guests in the process.

Reply to
charles

If you don't know you should not be in business. Have you always been a stupid f*ck?

Reply to
Mr Pounder

employer,

So each member of the band gets paid individually and makes their own contract with the venue or is it all done through one person?

Quite with a glorified bed sit in central London having an asking price of over =A31 million I dread to think what the rebuild cost of a large hotel would be...

As for the PAT testing, having seen the appalling state of the kit some musos think is fine it needs to be done. It's mostly down to visual inspection anyway, correct fuses, no damaged flexes, outer of flexes still in cable grips, no cracked or broken wall wart cases. For kit that is earthed a low impedance from the plug earth pin to any exposed metalwork etc

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Who are you talking to, me or Tony, you rude little cretin?

If it's me, then I'm not *in business*. I'm a man with a band that is lucky to play a couple of times a year, and even luckier to get any money for it, but we happen to have got a gig at a wedding (someone who happens to be mad on the sort of music we play) at rather prestigious London venue.

I'm not "in business", and I'm not interested in all this bullshit about PAT and liability insurance. Like any sane person I have a healthy disdain for our litigious and insurance-mad society. However, on this occasion it seems that the venue has a certain view. Interestingly, last June I played for the very same client who hired the BAFTA club at 195 Piccadilly, and they never asked for any of this nonsense, thankfully. Perhaps they actually bother to insure themselves properly, as a venue?

Michael

Reply to
Michael Kilpatrick

rebuild not that great - its the urban land that costs the cash.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Oi! Take your pills!

Reply to
Grimly Curmudgeon

I'd say it was the venue not wanting you there. I arrange an annual dinner for our Club, last year I asked if we can bring our own disco. Yes, was the answer, so long as the disco man brings in, beforehand, his CRB credentials (or pays if he hasnt got it), his insurance, and his licence from the Performing Rights Society, and something else that I cannot remember now, but they wanted proof that he had bought the music, rather than downloaded it free.

It all adds up to them wanting to use their own in-house disco, they cannot refuse you playing there, but put obstacles in your way to stop it.

£10million Insurance? I can work anywhere apart from nuclear power stations and chemical works, and only need £2million pounds.

Alan.

Reply to
A.Lee

And please do not forget any trailing sockets and adaptors. also it will save you if you make sure no mains plugs are of the non shrouded pin types first as these just get cut off as illegal it seems. The two way adaptor we used for over ten years suddenly became illegal this yeear and now we have a trailing socket with wires for people to break their necks over instead!

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Your insurance provides cover for you almost everywhere but I think it is quite common for councils and other public bodies to require £m5 of £m10 public liability insurance. It is a bit of a barrier to small firms but I can also see that £m2 ain't going to cover the damages that can be caused in a school, leisure centre, town hall etc.

Reply to
Robin
[Snip]

That depends on how thorough you are. Do you open the plug top and check the terminals?

A DMM does not provide 500v. You need that to check insulation. That's what used to come from an old fashioned "Megger". It's now part of a PAT tester.

Reply to
charles

In message , charles writes

I do open every plug and check the terminals, even on new, out of the box, equipment, which a lot of places accept as OK because it is new.

Fuses are normally correct. The number I find that have not been tightened fully is low. But there are a lot that have the wires incorrectly cut to length so that in the event of the cable grip failing they will pull out in the wrong order. Frequently they are all cut to the same length which can give the effect of them pulling loose in the order of E N L which is totally "A bout T"

Reply to
Bill

HOwever it's a very cheap extension to yur insurance if you want it.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

In message , at 09:42:09 on Sun, 3 Jun

2012, Duncan Wood remarked:

The cheapness shows how little coverage it provides, once you fully understand what failings (by the insured) are and aren't included.

Reply to
Roland Perry

Unshrouded pins are not illegal, and not directly a cause for PAT failure. They would indicate a plug which is 40 or more years old, and that might well have other things wrong with it, just from wear and tear.

The one case where they are illegal is on any appliance being sold (even in a car boot sale), so if the PAT test was specifically for verifying something was safe to sell, then that would cause a failure.

Of course, an organisation arranging PAT testing for itself can lay down any additional rules they want, including a ban on unshrouded pins.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Wellllllllllllllllll!

Reply to
Mr Pounder

=

Mainlly it's cheap because you're highly unlikely to ever be sued for th= at =

much. The coverage at 10Million is the same as at 2 on my policy.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

In message , at 15:26:43 on Sun, 3 Jun

2012, Duncan Wood remarked:

I prefer to look at it as "we aren't insuring you for very many risks at all, actually, so we'll be just as successful turning down claims for

10m as 2m".
Reply to
Roland Perry

What's excluded on your policy? Mine's fairly all inclusive.

Reply to
Duncan Wood

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