Messaged you, thanks Janet. Maybe publish a range of actual insurance policies in the wiki, from working repair cafés?
PAT units can occasionally be found cheap, its the annual calibration that’s expensive. Under UK law the unit has to be calibrated, and quite extensive records for each electrical item tested are required to be kept: some expensive PAT units do this digitally.
Technically the individual testing has only to fit the requirement “component person” which can be misleading, I’ve bought from a charity shop a type II electrical item, certified as tested: it was faulty (easy repair) and the transformer wasn’t marked tested (every seperate component must be tested, if the power lead unplugs, it must be tested separately).
I’m a retired NHS Specialist Electro-mechanical Engineer: everything I did had to be tested.
All that is true if you’re doing it officially and professionally, and sticking green labels on stuff implying liability if the device kills someone. And I’m sure the NHS is very hot on all that.
But that’s not where we are in a Restart context. What we’re doing is simply reasonable endevours to protect our volunteers and punters. If the same laws or regulations applying to PAT testing in the NHS were applied to Restart we’d be instantly reduced to working on low voltage devices, if not shut down altogether!
Thanks Ian!
Under UK law the unit has to be calibrated
Would you kindly help me locate the law concerned?
If PAT Testers must be calibrated, does that mean the calibration must be done by calibrators who can show they confirm to specific calibration standards, a bit like only garages certified by the government can conduct MOTs?
Absolutely wrong: it’s a legal requirement: you may have a point if the items in question are not for resale, and are used in domestic situations.
Your attitude, and response, and responsibility are abysmally flawed.
Ian Deare TMIET MIMIT FRSA
Items brought to Restart Parties are domestic items and are never for sale.
Such intemerate responses are not what we expect on these forums.
As I stated above, we do the tests for our own peace of mind.
By doing so, we are not acting as professionals, or providing a service to the end user. At our free, educational events participants take responsibility for their own possessions, which remain theirs. Nothing is bought or sold.
PAT testing in a professional capacity or as a paid service is an entirely different endeavour.
We’re closing this thread.
Again, anybody who wants to know our guidance about risk, liability and safety is pointed to