Risk Based Frequency of Portable Appliance Testing

Edition 5 of the IET Code Of Practice (The official guide to PAT Testing) encourages the duty holder to carry out a risk assessment and gives various examples. In Chapter 7 of this handbook, we provide both a way of carrying out a risk assessment and a Table based guidance on how the frequency of maintenance can be worked out.

500 V Insulation Resistance test and the IET Code of Practice (4th Edition)

The IET code of Practice says (section 15.5) that the 500 V Insulation Resistance test is a "hard test" and that it can "damage IT equipment or other equipment containing electronic components". We look at what this means and whether it makes sense.

Risk based PAT testing - a proposal

The IET Code of Practice in its Edition 4, recommends adopting a risk based PAT testing. ie decide on the frequency of inspection and test based on the actual risk posed by the appliance. This post presents a proposal on how a duty holder could work this out for themselves.

Note: This proposal has been updated on the 3rd of June 2013. 

Edition 4 of IET Code of Practice launched

The long awaitied IET Code of Practice landed on my desk today and cost me £48.40. The previous editions came out in 1994,2001 and 2007; so only 5 years have elapsed since the last edition.

Class I and Class II appliances

All electrical appliances using mains voltage have to provide at least 2 levels of protection to the user. This is to ensure that if one of the protection layers were to fail, there is the back-up of the second layer still in place. This makes electrical equipment very safe to use. Appliances can be Class 1 or Class 2. When PAT testing, it is important to first identify the Class of the appliance as Class 1 appliances are tested differently from Class 2 appliances.