See below for: Portable appliance testing for landlords

Portable appliance testing for businesses

Many companies will offer to come and “PAT test” your appliances once a year.

Unfortunately this probably means you are paying too much, as it is not normally necessary to test every appliance that often.  Worse still, testing on its own might not be enough to keep people safe and fulfil your legal duties.

By law you are required to maintain electrical equipment if it can cause danger.  The proper way to do this is through a combination of risk assessments, user checks, visual inspections and portable appliance tests (PAT).

Instead of just blindly testing appliances, I prefer to provide a fuller and more helpful service that actually protects your business, your staff and your customers.  I can help you prepare a risk assessment, and provide advice about how your staff can carry out user checks.  Once these things are in hand, then sensible intervals for testing can be considered – often less frequently than once-a-year.

By avoiding the lazy ‘test-yearly’ approach and actually doing things properly, you can protect yourself, and save money in the process.

Portable appliance testing for landlords

By law you must maintain any appliances you provide to the tenant, and ensure they are safe, but the law does not say how you should do this or how often.

There is therefore no legal requirement to have appliances tested.  However, having portable appliance tests (PAT) carried out by a competent and fully insured electrician is a very good way to comply with your legal responsibility to keep appliances safe.

It is not normally necessary to have appliances tested every year.  The frequency of the testing depends on the type of appliances and how they are used.

If you are having a condition report carried out, then it fairly quick and easy to test any appliances at the same time, so I can normally do it for a fairly small additional cost.

I will provide a report showing which appliances have been tested, and make a suggestion for when they should next be tested.