Apologies if this is a repeated thread....

I had a customer recently that employs a lot of carpenters for domestic work and through conversation he advised that all my electrical tools need to be PAT tested every year. I can understand that I would need a PAT certificate for tools used on a commercial site but I have never heard of this for domestic.

Just me or standard practice?

Cheers,

Daz

Not on domestic that i know of..

The guys who fitted my kitchen (housing association) had to use all cordless tools, no wires anywhere.

only commercial to my knowlegde.
not sure if you can do this on domestic sites. Very doubtful if joe bloggs would know what they are lol.

Just buy some PAT stickers from ScrewFix and stick em on!

Checkout the sparky forum, the lads there will know.

Or PM jason.s on here (who's the main mod for the sparky forum) and he'll let you know the score with it.

I'm pretty sure if he employs loads of carpenters he'll need to make sure they have their tools PAT tested annually. Though I think you yourself would only need to do it if it is site work.

It might be worth doing it from a safety point of view though as it does make sure your tools are in top condition.

i also heard that there,s a course / test you can take to become a certified PAT tester. approx £200.

I think if the tools are less than a year old they dont need testing.

I remember when I was very new to site work, a site agent I had never met before collared me first thing in the morning and asked about my tools and the PAT testing they need. I was like PAT what now?

So I promised not to use any of those tools for the rest of the day and made a phone call to my good friend, who is a sparky, and he said he could arrange for the PAT machine and do it all that night. Said his office would do me a certificate aswell, which meant I could turn up to work the next day.

So I get it all done, all tools with stickers, and a fresh certificate in hand, I wander up to the site office with a smug grin on my face.

The agent took one look at it, and said "anyone can download this stuff off the internet, how do I know its real?"

You need to have all electrical power tools Pat tested for domestic aswell once a year, you could get a visit from the Health and Safety inspectors at any time.
I went through all this last year when setting up.

First I've heard of that on domestic work

That's why I started the thread Mark, 'cos I've never heard of it for domestic either, but my customer is very knowledgeable with regards to H&S inspectors and was quite adamant .

Where would you get it done ????

A local qualified sparky should be able to issue the stickers and a certificate, I would have thought.

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

A local qualified sparky should be able to issue the stickers and a certificate, I would have thought.

Apparently there is a specific PAT testing machine (as I understand it, might be wrong) so not all sparkies will have one. Some of the larger firms might.

"So I get it all done, all tools with stickers, and a fresh certificate in hand, I wander up to the site office with a smug grin on my face.

The agent took one look at it, and said "anyone can download this stuff off the internet, how do I know its real?"

Hey bolter your sparky should be certified so ask for a copy of his certificate then shove that in his face....