PAT Testing Frequently Asked Questions

Question. Can Anyone Carry Out Portable Appliance Testing?
Answer. No. The people carrying out the PAT Testing must be competent. Our engineers, after carrying out 6 months in-house training, are City & Guilds trained in Appliance Testing. Many individuals/companies are not properly qualified to carry out PAT testing. Check that they can supply Calibration Certificates, Insurance details, Qualifications etc. This ensures that you as the Duty Holder have taken all possible steps to ensure that the person/company carrying out the appliance testing is competent. With over 14 years of experience, Hawkesworth Appliance Testing can provide all of the above information and more upon request.

Question. Is Pat Testing disruptive?
Answer. This depends how we define disruptive, for instance testing a large office through the day, will mean at some stage all members of staff will need to log-out of their computers, this alone is an expense and could be deemed disruptive. Although it only takes a few minutes to test any appliance spread over hundreds of computers it soon adds up. Therefore we offer an out of hours Pat Testing service at no extra cost this helps to negate downtime. In general 90%+ of testing is done 9-5 Mon-Fri, our engineers ebb and flow to suit users to cause as little disruption as possible.

Question. What are the different ways of charging for Pat Testing?
Answer. There are 3 main ways of charging for testing as follows:-

  • The most common way is a charge per appliance, which can vary depending on the number of appliances being tested.
  • An hourly rate, be very wary of companies who charge an hourly rate, they have no incentive to test efficiently, indeed they are paid more the slower they test.
  • A ‘fixed rate’ for your premises, initially a good looking option but most of the time the price is either inflated by the contractor to cover the unknown, resulting in you overpaying – or they under quote and you get what you pay for. Again our advice is be wary of these types of ‘deals’