PAT testing questions

save-a-lot

Hi

There is no intention to make a living out of it, I just want to earn a little extra in time that I have to spare. I would not work for 50p/item no way. I was thinking more along the lines of £1.50 - £1.80/item dependant on volumes and also having minimum charge for those that have only a handful of items to test, also a petrol supplement for out of county jobs. I have seen other PAT companies doing the min charge and fuel supplement for jobs done at some distance from base.

Snow_Dog

The other thing to consider is the report, you should provide the list of checked items and results to the customer, if you do it in say excel look to PDFing it up so that there is no possiblility of someone else being able to use your data the next year easily.

Other than that sounds like you have the bases covered. I'd be interested to know how you get on, ping me a PM in a few months if you get a chance.

Savvy_Sue

I've just found another area of PATing which might be a bit of a niche market ... 'single-item' tests.

Let me explain. I'm in the middle of helping at a conference. We've been based at a large church for most of the time, but today we've been at a local secondary school for small group sessions. At the school, all the classrooms are equipped with data projectors, so if you bring your own laptop you can plug it into the projector and away you go with PowerPoint.

However, a few of our workshop leaders find all this new-fangled technology a bit beyond them, and asked for OHPs. Which the school does not have. Not one. Anywhere.

No problem, all the churches we know have recently upgraded to data projectors running off PCs, so OHPs are sitting around not being used. We borrow a few, take them to the school, and the caretaker looks at them and says "These can't be plugged in, they haven't been PATed".

Then someone turns up with their personal laptop. Again, no PAT sticker on the plug. Can't be plugged in - fine if it has a good charge on the battery, but if not ...

Then a colleague of DH appears with his laptop. No PAT sticker. Well, no doubt in time the nanny state WILL insist we all have all our appliances tested every year, but in the meantime, how many of us do?

However, I said to DH "I thought you said you had your stuff tested?" And he does, but this colleague's laptop is less than a year old, so it's not been tested yet.

And then I have a phone charger with me because the conference phone battery is going flat, but again no PAT sticker.

Now, if I'd had this problem flagged up to me BEFORE the conference started, would there have been anywhere I could have taken these OHPs, phone chargers and laptops to get the magic sticker?

I don't suppose there's a lot of money in it, but there ought to be some, I'd have thought. Even if you only offered that 'one-off' service to regular customers, and had items brought to you (where practical!) OR you charged a callout fee on top for less than 5 items.

I'm probably rambling, it's been a very long few days ... and it's not over yet!

Snow_Dog

Local TV repair man would be the first port of call in the yellow pages. They have to test everything they fix so are likely to be willing for a charge to do one off tests.

Savvy_Sue

thanks, that's a good thought.

One of my fellow organisers who was away on the day we were using the school apologised to me afterwards about the OHPs, he said "I should have remembered to check for PAT stickers, and if I had, I've got some I could have stuck on ..."

He confirmed that there's no legal requirement to carry out such tests, says it's just a huge insurance money-making scam.

Snow_Dog

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

thanks, that's a good thought.

One of my fellow organisers who was away on the day we were using the school apologised to me afterwards about the OHPs, he said "I should have remembered to check for PAT stickers, and if I had, I've got some I could have stuck on ..."

He confirmed that there's no legal requirement to carry out such tests, says it's just a huge insurance money-making scam.

Strewth, well it just goes to show, you shouldn't always listen to some people.

"no legal requirement" - technically they are correct, however a lot of health and safety regulations are not a legal requirement but in the event of an accident whoever goes round blithly slapping PASS stickers on equipment is going to be in the cr**per.

PAT is a MOT for your electrical equipment, would you drive in a car with a dodgy or no MOT?

Must admit though, some companies do make a killing from it.