Jobs you are better doing yourself than hiring others.

takman

Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) of all electrical equipment by a person outside the business seems to be a big waste of money in alot of businesses, especially on brand new equipment!.


It would be much better just to have a responsible person on site who goes around yearly and visually inspects the electrical equipment and keeps a log of the check. This would satisfy all the HSE regualatory requirements and save alot of money.

DCFC79

takman wrote: »

Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) of all electrical equipment by a person outside the business seems to be a big waste of money in alot of businesses, especially on brand new equipment!.


It would be much better just to have a responsible person on site who goes around yearly and visually inspects the electrical equipment and keeps a log of the check. This would satisfy all the HSE regualatory requirements and save alot of money.

Agreed, alot of money could be saved.

From experience firms wanted new equipment tested and some didnt, a couple of instances the new equipment wasn't out of the box.

[Deleted User]

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

You can just save a Word document as a PDF; it's one of the built in format options. If people are hiring people to do this I want in on it.

I think it is when a company want 100s of docs converting, not just one, or two that outside help is hired.

Tammykitty

takman wrote: »

Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) of all electrical equipment by a person outside the business seems to be a big waste of money in alot of businesses, especially on brand new equipment!.


It would be much better just to have a responsible person on site who goes around yearly and visually inspects the electrical equipment and keeps a log of the check. This would satisfy all the HSE regualatory requirements and save alot of money.

Actually HSE do suggest Portable appliance testing - its isn't compulsory though


https://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/pat-testing


https://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/files/PAT-testing-table.jpg



Just doesn't need to be every year for lot of things.


You may also find that even though it isn't required by HSE, it may be required by Insurance companies

[Deleted User]

Spider_In_The_Bath wrote: »

I think it is when a company want 100s of docs converting, not just one, or two that outside help is hired.

I shudder to think the labour intensive ways people in offices do things.

I've whipped up Word (and RTF) to PDF batch converters using open source products (pro-tip: Open Office). Hell, I've done it PDF to RTF before too.

Back when I was 19, I had a summer job at a surveyors firm. They had a really time-consuming method of getting data in one spreadsheet into a format in another spreadsheet. Took me a couple of hours to whip up a VBA script to do automatically and saved them LOADS of time.

If in doubt, find a geeky teenager.

takman

Tammykitty wrote: »

Actually HSE do suggest Portable appliance testing - its isn't compulsory though

https://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/pat-testing


https://www.healthandsafetyatwork.com/files/PAT-testing-table.jpg


Just doesn't need to be every year for lot of things.


You may also find that even though it isn't required by HSE, it may be required by Insurance companies

Looking at the official HSE website:


http://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/faq-portable-appliance-testing.htm


They state that "Portable appliance testing (PAT) is the term used to describe the examination of electrical appliances and equipment to ensure they are safe to use"


So a visual inspection by a competant person who works for the company is all that is required and is classed as PAT.


What i'm saying is that you shouldn't be hiring people from ouside the company to carry out electrical testing using specialist equipment because it isn't necessary in most workplaces.

getmore4less

fewgroats wrote: »

Could we come up with a list of tasks that are relatively easy to do and shouldn't require hiring a freelancer or similar? I suppose there are a number of jobs which a businesses should do themselves but don't. Proofing may be a grey area, for example.

Converting a PDF to a Word document.
Converting a Word document to a PDF.
Creating a Spreadsheet.

its a time/earning trade off.

if I earn £50ph doing something employing an expensive IT tech on £20ph or even a cheaper admin person on £10ph can be very good value as long as I can keep them busy with work.

some stuff is easy but takes time

if time rich you do stuff, once the time runs out you start to employ people to do the things they can do cheaper per hour than you can earn by working.


There is a trade off for your social/hobby/down/capable time.

some activities have non money value, like looking after your own kids or make you feel good like it relaxes you.

eg
if you value the time sitting in a nice garden more than you enjoy making it nice and can work a few hour more and employ a gardener to make it nice.

tea_lover

Visual inspection is not the same thing as combined inspection and test (PAT). Visual inspection is adequate for a lot of portable equipment - dependent on the outcome of an initial risk assessment. However, certain faults such as deterioration of insulation etc. cannot be detected by a visual inspection and this is where PAT comes in.

The initial risk assessment needs to consider the type of equipment, how old it is, whether it is double insulated, frequency of use, storage conditions etc. This information is used to determine the type and frequency of checks required.

I do fully agree that PAT checks are easy to train someone to do in-house, and that in a lot of cases they are done far too often. They do have a place though and are an important method for ensuring electrical safety.

AlexBarret

It`s true, Youtube can everything!:cool:

[Deleted User]

AlexBarret wrote: »

It`s true, Youtube can everything!:cool:

I'm still intrigued as to what you're going to be spamming us with Alex, with your inane, oddly worded post building...