Posted By Red Ones
Test 'em

Posted By Michael Griffith
Hi Mel,

If I were you I would take the advice off the other two respondees. We had an incident were someone brought in their bluetooth headset and charger, plugged it into the wall and bang!! The back flew off the charger and the ring main tripped out causing all the computers to turn off. As you can imagine those that hadn't saved thier work were not very happy.

The back of the charger flew off with some force, narrowly missing the person sat nearest to it. The downtime after the incident was a couple of hours as we had to call the electrician to check everything out.

As a result no portable electrical equipment is allowed to be plugged in until it has been tested/inspected, regardless of age or manufacturers warranty.

Play it safe and check them out.

Cheers, Mick

Posted By Brian Hagyard
Do your lights have an earth wire?

If not I suspect a pat test would be a total waste of money!

Brian

Posted By Barry Cooper
Two issues to consider
Are the lights classed as portable equipment. "equipment that is moved from one place to another". Would you move these lights.

The fact that there is no earth, does not negate the need to test, you can still do other tests like insulation resistance test, flash test, current test etc. Class 1,2 and 3 equipment all require testing if they are deemed portable appliances

Posted By Steven
I would agree with the majority inthat they need to be tested.

I do however have a question that has become an issue within our office. A new kettle has been purchased due to th eold one being in a state that i would consider dangerous. An employee just coming form a H&S training course has told the staff that they are not allowed to use the kettle due to the fact that it has not been PAT tested. Does all new equipment need to be tested immediatly or can the equipment be used until the next round of testing is done in about 10 months time?

Steve

Posted By Tony Gladman
Manufacturer's warranty doesn't prove the appliance is safe.
We test everything including new.. and often found new appliances with faults.
Only takes a couple of minutes..... safeguards the user and protects the business from potential risk associated loss.
Tony

Posted By Nigel Singleton BSc
Could I remind everyone that there is no legal requirement to PAT test anything at all. The duty is to maintain in a safe and efficient working manner. For a class II item which xmas lights usually are, a simple visual inspection and functionality test will be all that can be done. As suggested above in a previous response, please, please do not try to flash test xmas lights, unless you want the best light display in town for a fraction of a second. It is also pointless considering a continuity test as both wires can be either live or neutral (otherwise they would be different colours) and completing an insulation test would take hours, as you would have to clamp each inch of the cable to guarantee no leakage. Common sense would therefore indicate that the correct test would be formal visual inspection to start with and then visual thereafter (no fault - no record). With regard to testing from new, I have tested many items that were new from the box and failed them, usually on incorrect fuse rating. Again the duty is to maintain, which starts the moment it enters the business premises.