PAT Testing Planner

How many tests a year, what it should cost and which items need what. Built on the Compliance Buyer plan. Ordinary items get a full test every two years and higher risk items every year. Power tools on building sites every three months. A competent visual check of everything every year.

The detail comes from the IET Code of Practice for In-service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment (5th edition). The law asks you to maintain equipment so it does not cause danger. It does not say how. This is how.

Environment

Inventory by category

IT equipment (computers, monitors, printers, networking)

Kitchen and catering equipment

Higher risk items (kettles, toasters, heaters, hairdryers, floor cleaners, extension leads, hand tools)

Power tools and site equipment on building sites

How this works

Year one. A competent engineer gives every appliance a full inspection and test. That builds the register: every item, its class, where it lives, its result. Without the register you cannot manage anything.

Year two. A formal visual check of everything by a trained and competent person. A full test of the higher risk items only. That means anything handheld or moved often and anything used near heat or water. Kettles and toasters and heaters and hairdryers. Floor cleaners and extension leads and hand tools. Anything in a commercial kitchen. Anything with a damage history or flagged last time. Year three goes back to year one.

Building sites are the exception. Power tools and site equipment there get a full test every three months and a check before every use.

Underneath all of it sits the rule that costs nothing. Every user looks at the cable, the plug and the casing before every use. A fault seen on Monday morning is worth more than a sticker from last March.