What Is PAT Testing? Portable Appliance Testing
What Is PAT Testing?
Portable Appliance Testing or PAT Testing as it is known, is a routine inspection for maintaining portable electrical equipment.
It starts with the most important check and that's carrying out a thorough visual inspection, which is completed by a competent person. Finally specialist equipment is used to determine the readings of the appliance and the item is then recorded and labelled as Pass or Fail, on completion of the report a PAT Certificate is then issued.
This determines its safety for use and acts as preventative measure for avoiding electrical accidents in the workplace, by maintaining Safety at Work, its the standard way to meet the legal requirements of -
- Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1974
- Electricity at Work regulations 1989
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment regulations of 1998
- Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations 1999
The governing body for PAT is conducted by the IET Code of Practice for Inspection & Testing of Electrical Equipment.
The use of the word Portable can be somewhat misleading due to the fact that not all items are portable, some are also movable or fixed but it is an informal use and covers all electrical equipment that is used within a workplace.