Lunchtime Learning Webinar – Electrical Testing & Compliance

00:05:08
Hello and welcome to another lunchtime learning  session with us here at Robinsons Facility Services. I’m your host Kevin Ayres and with  me today I have the brilliant Matt who is our resident electrical testing expert. Welcome Matt.  Thank you Kevin. Nice to be here. Hello everybody. Yeah, brilliant to have you. So I’m looking  forward to diving into the world of electrics. I was joking with a friend the other day, like  he got some work done in his house and there’s just like, is there ever enough plugs in a house?  No, that’s true. Yeah, absolutely. It just doesn’t

00:05:50
matter how many plugs you have installed in your  house. There’s never enough. I also don’t know where all the phone chargers go. It’s like they’ve  kind of teamed up with the socks, I think. But this is a big issue, right? So the more we have  all these cables and stuff, everything we have is powered by electricity these days. It all needs to  be tested and kept on top of, right? Absolutely. That is true, yes. If I could just throw a  statistic out there to start with. Yeah, sure.

00:06:21
Go for it. Certainly, we’re talking the commercial  environment. Approximately, twenty percent of all commercial fires are caused by some kind of  electrical fault. That twenty percent is second only to arson, actually. So it is a major as  possible um so you see it’s almost like then uh if we don’t get this sorted it’s almost  like self-arsen do you know what i mean it’s like there’s something we can do it’s really quite  risky um and you know as we all know i think we’ve

00:06:57
probably all been guilty of daisy chaining things  and you know putting stuff that’s too powerful on something that really shouldn’t be on you know all  of those kind of i mean there are some very simple steps that can be taken that doesn’t need major  expertise that everybody in the workplace can can can carry out so yes i think as well it starts  starts before before we get into this i just share a quick story i was at a client’s site the other  day and um i needed a you know power for my laptop

00:07:29
and he said i’ll just take that extension cable  you know it’s like standard sort of four block extension cable with a cable And I picked it up  and it was like really hot when I picked it up. And it was like, oh, you know, uh and uh he said  oh what’s going on that and you know and the plug was a bit dodgy or i don’t know something he  was going he didn’t blink he just chucked it straight in the bin and i was like i was well  impressed he didn’t try and kind of fiddle with

00:07:55
it it’s like it’s a throwaway item you know and  he just threw it away and i was well impressed i thought because i used to work in as i may have  mentioned on these things before i used to work in oil industry absolutely drummed into a safety  first safety first safety first so i was super impressed with that so yeah anything anything like  charges like that they’re so cheap to replace it’s not worth looking into them too deeply if you  can see something visual that’s wrong with it

00:08:20
definitely get rid of it yeah absolutely so so  look matt what um what do we mean by it like what actually is electrical testing um i think we’ve  already understood why it’s why it’s critical but like what do we actually mean by electrical  testing So electrical testing and inspection is basically critical in reducing the risk of fire  and electrical injury in the workplace. also private landlords as well for the premises they  let out to tenants. The onus of responsibility in keeping electric appliances safe at all times  comes on the business owner, the landlord,

00:09:06
not just to protect employees and tenants,  but also members of the public contractors and anybody else who comes on site. To be able  to achieve that, there are three types of testing in essence. So we have PAT testing, which is, I  think most people know, but for those that don’t, it says PAT, which stands for portable appliance  testing so anything i i wondered whether you’re actually going to say that because i’m like who  is pat and what you know why why do we blame him for everything yeah you’ve got people saying oh  we mean our pack testing doing pnc and it’s like

00:09:49
yeah so i did sorry sorry what spell it out again  sorry i interrupted you P-A-T, which stands for portable appliance testing, which is, in essence,  anything that has a power lead with a plug on the end. It’s as simple as that, which are numerous in  most workplaces, offices. Well, this isn’t just to be clear, therefore, because I would have assumed  it’s sockets as well, but they’re obviously fixed, so that isn’t pack testing. No, no, sockets are  different. I couldn’t tell you. in a moment no

00:10:23
your portable appliances so portable in nature  so they can be moved around anything that’s got a power lead with a plug and as well as that just  as important is almost the opposite of pat testing because it’s called fixed appliance testing right  some people call it fat but for the purpose a part and then fixed appliance testing so you said  this i guess if you’ve got portable blood testing and you’ve got fixed appliances yeah so so fixed  appliances are um appliances that are hardwired

00:11:00
into the wall so they don’t have a plug on the end  There are less of them than portable appliances, but for example, hand-drying toilets, some  wall heaters and hardwires, some cooker hosts, things like that. You’ve just sparked part of the  pun. It’s funny, like the right puns, you know, like it’s subconsciously come to you, isn’t it?  um i’ve just remembered when you say hand dryers i remember being probably about ten in school drying  my hands and got a shop off the hand drive and

00:11:34
they had to i was like whoa you know i had  to go report it so yeah it’s uh i remember that for like a long time forty years or something  but yeah those sort of things are touched by you know by hand all the time so it is important that  they’re safe as well and the third area of testing is what’s known as EICR which stands for  electrical installation condition report and so this is more of a report it’s a little  bike you could probably compare it a little bit like an MOT it’s a report on the condition of  your board with the little circuit switches you

00:12:19
everybody will have one at home under the stairs  somewhere and so in a commercial environment and the circuits leave the fuse board and then end  up eventually via various devices and to put the plug socket in the wall so it’s it’s looking for  for defects in in that installation and so that’s There are your three areas of testing that you  need to be looking at to comply with health and safety regulation and health and safety at work.  Brilliant. And that that’s really helped them.

00:12:52
It’s just helped me sort of clear it up. Because I  think probably for the uninitiated, they probably, you know, everybody knows pat testing, the  guy at the pat test guy comes round and goes, so I’m like, everything goes to stop work. And you  know, whatever. I don’t know about the viewers, but I’d probably lump it all together in pat  testing. So it’s helpful to understand those three uh distinctions uh and i just want to say now  we’ve got um a lot of people online which is

00:13:15
brilliant so if you’ve just joined and missed  the start of that week um i’m here with uh matt uh and we are looking at electrical testing  and compliance today so thank you for joining us and if you haven’t joined us um for one of  these before we’re going to be here for about forty five minutes Max, we’ll finish with some  quickfire questions if we have time. But we’d love to have your questions. So do feel free in  the chat to post your questions. If it’s relevant,

00:13:46
we’ll take them during the session. Or if we’re  running out of time a little bit, we might wait till the end or forgetting a lot of questions. it  would be great to have some interaction with you if you have a burning question again pardon  the pun that you would like to pose to Matt you know he’s here we’ve got him you know do feel  free to ask so Matt let’s crack on so You alluded before that the onus is on, say, landlords. And  a lot of the topics we cover here at Robbins

00:14:19
Facility Services often involve some kind of level  of safety. And as having been a landlord myself, I’m kind of like, never mind what the law says,  like, I want to be able to sleep at night. I’m not going to kill somebody or something. So  there’s that burden, I guess. But what are the legal and regulatory requirements? What do I have  to do if I’m looking after a commercial property? yeah if you’re um in terms of we’ll start with  the private landlord side of things if you’re

00:14:55
if you let out a private premises to a tenant um  in terms of eicr which i mentioned was the the main installation in the building you have a legal  obligation to have that um tested every five years that’s part of your legal obligation um there’s  no getting no getting away from that um also if you are supplying a lot of landlords will supply  unfurnished premises but may well supply a couple of whiteboards in the kitchen such as a washing  machine or you know a dryer things like that and your obligation is to make sure that those  appliances are safe at all times There’s no legal

00:15:44
obligation to say that you have to have those  pat tested every so often. However, you know, insurance policies are definitely something to  look at. They may say they want your wife goes pat testing every twelve months or in between  times. So read the small print basically. Read the small print yeah but there’s nothing in the  Health and Safety at Work Act that says in terms of pat testing that you have to have that carried  out but you do have to make sure your appliances are safe at all times so pat testing is evidence  you know if you’ve got paper evidence that you’ve

00:16:22
had that carried out then you are certainly  covering yourselves. And a lot of the type of appliances you mentioned there that landlord might  supply or that we have are often in the kitchen, right? And they’re washing machines, kettles,  things that involve water as well. So I guess the risk goes up as well if there’s a risk of shock or  whatever. Yeah. The only other thing to mention is if you’re a landlord of an HMO house with multiple  occupations, Obviously they’re registered with the

00:16:53
council, so you liaise with the council, they  may tell you that they want appliances testing, you know, taught monthly or in between tenancies.  That just depends on the council. But as far as the EICR is concerned, that is a legal  obligation every five years. And also if you’ve got, you may own a holiday let, which is fully  furnished. So in that case, if you’re supplying the TVs, the lamps, everything in the lounge, the  Wi-Fi hub, all that sort of thing would be your responsibility. What about, and I guess this is  perhaps more relevant to folk on this call, what

00:17:38
about for managing commercial property? What’s  your responsibility then? It’s a bit more grey, to be honest, which is why I said we’ll go through  the private rental sector first. Okay, right. very much need to look at lease agreements, which  will dictate who has to carry out, specifically EICR, really, that’s the main thing where you get  disputes. Is it the landlord? Is it the occupier? Generally speaking, in most cases, the landlord  will be responsible for the EICR keeping

00:18:22
on there. keeping on top of that. But again, it’s  not setting the stone. You really do need to read the lease agreement. So I guess that’s, before we  dive into like who’s responsible, let’s take the, you know, somebody’s responsible. So for each of  those, for the PAT, the FAT, the EIC, I love that, EICR, what is the responsibility? So you  mentioned five years, if it’s a private, you know, somebody renting out their old house, like it was  in my situation. There’s no requirement for a pat

00:18:57
and a fat, but there is a requirement to keep it  safe. What about, let’s keep it simple. It’s a commercial property that my company own. I’m not  renting it to anybody else. I’m not subletting it or anything like that. what do I actually,  so it’s obviously me or, you know, my company, what do I have to do, you know, in terms of how  often rigorous, et cetera, can I do it myself? Do I need somebody like you to come in or, you  know, who, who does it? And yeah, what do I have to do? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So if you’ve got  your own, your own premises, your own business,

00:19:32
obviously you’ve got your legal obligation to keep  your electrical appliances, everything safe for your employees. In most environments,  say office and low risk environments, many companies will have an EICR every five years.  There are other industries that are a bit more heavy industrial. For example, there could be a  lot of dust and dirt around, so you get an ingress of dirt in the circuits. depending on the state of  the installation as well. How old is it? Some of these old industrial buildings have got absolutely  ancient installations. That could be three yearly.

00:20:22
And there’s also anywhere that’s like a swimming  pool or a sauna or anywhere that provides wet room facilities is generally a year. I mean,  these are not set in stone. I was going to say, I’m picking up a risk assessment approach rather  than a statutory five years, three years, one year kind of. Yeah. In terms of PAT testing and fixed  appliance testing, it does have to come from the business owner, the frequency, assuming they want  to go down that route to comply with legislation.

00:21:02
Through risk assessment, maybe looking at previous  reports and seeing how many appliances failed. If the last time you had PAT testing done was  two years ago and you had lots and lots of fails, Should you be having it done more often? And so  in terms of, you know, is it the health and safety executive that would be keeping tabs on this  sort of thing? Yeah, I mean, facilities managers, health and safety employees. Obviously, if you’re  the… business owner you need to liaise very closely with them to make sure that everybody’s  on the same page because ultimately you know i

00:21:44
guess sorry matt i guess what i’m getting at  is do I need to do a risk assessment or at least would it be sort of frowned upon if, you  know, the health and safety executive turn up, you know, or some sort of inspector turn, health  and safety inspector turns up and goes, right, when was the last time you had everything tested?  Like he can’t force, he or she can’t force you to do that, but like, are they going to look  fairly poorly on, well, you know, where’s your risk assessments? You know, what, even if it’s  not written in stone, what’s the expectation?

00:22:16
Yeah. If you haven’t got any written documentation  to prove that you’ve shown good practice, that suggests that maybe you’re not really showing  due diligence and keeping on top of the problems. If you’ve got documentation that you can pull  out of the drawer and say, even if it might have been too long ago, at least you’ve shown that  you’ve given the, obviously it’s a very important subject. You’ve thought about it, maybe you’ve  fallen off the wagon at one point. You’ve got

00:22:51
the evidence that testing’s taken place, whether  it be ICR, pap testing, fixed appliance testing, so it is important to definitely have the  paperwork. It’s no good doing the testing and saying I did it three months ago but I  haven’t got anything to show for it. So it is, yeah, it’s important for the business owners to  keep on top of it. There’s a sort of sense of documenting the process and sort of showing due  diligence. And I guess I come back to the end of what you started this whole thing with, which  was Like most fires, other than deliberate arson,

00:23:30
in terms of unintended fire, this is number one.  And as we said, there’s so many wires, cables, and what have you. It’s really important. Laura raised  a good question. So let’s put that on screen. Laura is saying, if you don’t have documents to  prove that compliancy, would this mean you’re breaching the Health and Safety Work Act? No, it  wouldn’t because, as I think I said originally, the Health and Safety at Work Act means or  suggests that you have to keep your appliances

00:24:06
safe at all times. It doesn’t say that you have to  do this by carrier pack testing or fixed appliance testing or EICR unless you’re a private landlord.  But if you don’t have that evidence that you’ve done something to protect your appliances, you’ve  got nothing to show that you’re complying with the legislation. But it is not a law that you have to  have pap testing or any other testing done unless you’re a private. So Matt, I’m guessing that  in reality then, if they go round and find all

00:24:45
sorts of problems and you can’t show that you’ve  done any testing or anything, That’s not going to look great. If they go round and go, well, this is  all amazing, this is the best we’ve ever seen, but you’ve got no documentation, they’re probably not  going to worry because it’s like, well, it would be even better if you could do some documentation  next time, it’s best practice, blah, blah, blah. But they’re probably not going to take any  action. The three ways of testing and inspection

00:25:11
we just mentioned are the most recognised ways  of making life easy for yourself and complying with the legislation of keeping appliances safe  at all times. I think it’d be making life very difficult for yourself if you ignore those and  just hope for the best. Just got another quick question from Thomas and then I want to actually,  it’d be great to actually look at what does bad practice look like so we know what we’re looking  for. So Thomas is asking, sometimes people refer to EICR and fixed wire testing as being the same  thing. Is that correct or are they both completely

00:25:48
separate tasks? EICR and fixed wire testing are  the same thing. Fixed wire testing is an older, probably people refer to fixed wire testing  more sort of ten years ago, but the correct term for the same thing is in this day and age is  EICR. So electrical installation, condition report is where we are today. But if anybody says to  you, you know, can we have a quote for fixed wire testing? it is PICR the same thing yeah and I’m  guessing that’s from the name the condition report probably looks a little bit more than previously  you know like the the surroundings the kind of

00:26:33
context and environment that everything’s going on  or is it just a pure name change um It’s the same, I mean part of an EICR is actually testing the  circuits on the fuse board, there are tests that go on there so hence why it used to be called  testing but in essence an EICR is a bit like, as I said, a bit like an MOT so It’s quite a  complex, in-depth report. There’s a lot more to it than, say, PAT testing. But at the end of  it, you will an industry standard report which we would use you would it would either come back as  the installation is satisfactory or unsatisfactory

00:27:20
and if it’s unsatisfactory i guess what i mean  by condition is that a fixed wire and maybe this did include this anyway but it it almost implies  exactly we’re just going to test the continuity of the circuits there’s no earth leaks or whatever  but A condition report might apply, well, is there anything broken? You know, it’s not the electrical  bits, but it’s the insulation, the coverings, the covers, all of those sort of things. Is this  generally in good condition? Is that true or would

00:27:49
that have been under the previous thing anyway?  It would have been under the previous fixed wire testing as well. It’s just a different term for  the same thing, really. it sounds a bit posher let’s be honest somebody’s got right with to  make it sound more important but okay that’s great that’s helpful to understand so thank you  thomas said look um i think it would be good to actually look at what we can do what we can all  do even if we’re not experts like what does bad

00:28:14
practice look like and i’m sure we’ve all seen  some of these sort of things uh hopefully not in our own homes or offices but i’m sure we’ve seen  other people’s offices so um could you talk us through uh talk us through these matt Yeah, these  are photos of situations that would have occurred when our sort of pat tester turns up and what  he might find. The first photo is the burnt out extension lead plug, likely to have been caused  by overloading that extension lead with too many

00:28:56
high powered appliances and it’s actually  good knowledge for your tab at home as well because on the back of the extension lead plugs  there will be a reading on there that says the maximum amount of power that you can pull through  through that extension usually thirteen amp every single device that you plug into the extension  lead draws a certain amount of power. And some appliances are high powered, such as most of  your kitchen. If you get an extension lead and plugged all your kitchen appliances in at  once, like your fridge, your washing machine,

00:29:35
your dryer, if you plugged all those in, you’d be  overloading that extension lead. Each individual appliance will have a reading on the side of it.  showing how much power that will draw. And if you add it all up and it exceeds the maximum of  thirteen amps, that can easily be what happens, potentially causing a fire. I’m guessing, I guess,  would you say, I’m kind of making this up here, but it’d be interesting to know what  you think. So if you’ve got something, I’ve got a little heater. I basically live in a  farmhouse where it’s basically a colander, so it’s

00:30:12
quite cold. So I’ve got a little fan heater going  on here. Anything that kind of heats or, you know, like an iron, presumably it’s preferable, if you  possibly can, just stick it straight into the wall rather than through an extension cable like  that because then you know it can take it. Yeah, absolutely. The more wall sockets, the better  because you’re extracting… power from the fuse board on a separate circuit. So basically you’re  plugging that extension lead into one circuit and

00:30:40
plugging three or four high powered devices in,  that’s putting so much pressure on that circuit. And that’s the end result of what can happen.  Shall we move on to the next one? Yeah, go for the next one. I wonder what’s happened here.  Yeah. I mean, this is clearly underneath that probably insulation tape. There’ll be some  exposed wires. I know some people think, oh, well, I wrapped it. It’s insulation tape. It’ll  be fine. That’s what it’s for. But that is hiding,

00:31:16
obviously, some original fault exposed wiring.  Insulation tape is probably okay if you’re replacing a bulb or tying some ends up and leaving  them in the roof, but extension leads like that are going to be handled all the time and that tape  is just going to deteriorate. If it’s not a fail, it’s going to stay there all year, and probably  next year it will be exposed again. So that’s an automatic fail as well, seen by a PAT tester. You  surprised me. You surprised me, man. That is to

00:31:52
get you through to the end of the day, at worst  case, and then chuck it, right? Preferably chuck it straight away. Chuck it straight away, yeah. A  PAT tester would probably notify somebody on site straight away and say, you know he’s getting  rid of um and the big red do not use sticker point yeah yeah okay so let’s have a look at the  next ones here uh classic i think we’ve all we’ve already probably had or probably got one of those  in our house somewhere right you know absolutely

00:32:21
this is by far the most common um thing that that  we see in uh in premises whilst it doesn’t look too bad and it’ll work fine There should never  be any coloured cable showing anywhere on a power lead or anywhere near the top of the plug. It’s  very common for that to be sticking out the top of the plug, but that grey insulation cable needs to  go right into the plug. Yeah, that is potentially dangerous. Again, that is a fail. And it’s, I  guess, because those two little screws there,

00:32:58
they need to be clamping down. They’re the clamp,  isn’t it? So they need to be clamping down, not on the coloured wires, but on the insulation so that,  you know, because otherwise you’ve got this nice, you know, fault waiting to happen, right, by  just moving the cables to and fro. The danger of exposed wire in there. So, yeah, that grade  label needs to be clamped in those two screws inside the plug. so yeah that is the most common  yeah we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of photos

00:33:26
of that nice i i can i can well imagine and uh  there’s plenty of people online now thinking oh yeah there is that extension i really want to do  something about you know so quick afterwards out with the screwdriver yeah these photos that we’re  going through i mean uh Just regular checks that staff can do periodically every month or two, have  a look on the desk, have a look in the warehouse and just let your facilities manager know or  health and safety person. If you know what you’re

00:33:58
looking for and you know what’s going to fail,  some of this is reasonably straightforward. Well, I mentioned being in the oil industry before,  you know, it’s like it’s one of those things. We’re all responsible for safety and these  are easy, easy wins. I think anyone, you know, knows that that shouldn’t be like that. So and if  we didn’t before, we do now. So, yeah. So let’s have a look at our final slide here. Well, these  are really just a bit of fun because you’re not

00:34:26
going to see this every day. But these are genuine  appliances that our engineers have come across. The first one is obviously there’s a kettle, but  the whole bottom’s fallen off. Yeah. And it was in use. You could probably still plug it in in  the middle and it’d probably still work. But, you know, clearly… I don’t know. It’s just art.  People might not notice that the bottom had come off and just put it on the base. I don’t know.  But, yeah, that’s got to go. Yeah, absolutely. And

00:34:56
on the right-hand side… This one, you say it’s  unusual, but I think we’ve all seen and we’ve had, you know, This doesn’t happen overnight. I know  you said this is a microwave, right? This is a bad one, but I think we’ve all seen microwaves  where the paint’s starting to chip away. It’s starting to grow. You’re like, well, I should  not do anything about it. Yeah, I mean, this, you know, I’m not going to tell you whose premises  it was on, but it was a customer in the Northwest,

00:35:24
but I won’t say any more than that. And that  was in their staff room kitchen. It was earlier this year. Right. Now, yeah, it probably, it was  plugged in and it probably still worked. But yeah, you can’t, yeah, it’s definitely a pat test  fail is that. It’s got exposed, corroding metal. If it’s in a state like that, it just  needs, obviously, replacing. I think whoever’s been using that have probably got bigger problems  then the sort of fire and electrical issues to start with is more. But like I say, I guess  my point is that the one on the left probably

00:36:06
happened like that and either people didn’t notice  it but it happened suddenly the one on the right didn’t happen overnight and it would have been  slowly getting worse and worse and people are just sort of ignoring it and because it’s become  part of their daily life because they’re using it every day they don’t really notice it they keep  excusing it and one day somebody comes in looks at it and it looks like that and that’s that you  know it’s the thin end of the wedge isn’t it so

00:36:31
we need to start at the end of the day what that  microwave doesn’t look like an expensive microwave it’s probably fifty quid it’s just like just  chuck it out you know yeah that is probably the worst example but we have seen quite a few kurobe  likewise and things like student accommodation as you’d expect but yeah it is unusual but it’s  not it’s very unusual to that would like that but karate microwaves are not that unusual yeah  yeah like i said just because it happens gradually

00:36:58
right you know especially that i think especially  that front bit not so much in the middle but the edges especially that front bit where the you know  the door goes to and fro there’s a lot of bashing um you know certainly we’ve had one at home where  it’s starting to chip and oh is it bad enough yeah really ought to get rid of it so yeah absolutely  yeah um Yeah, just things that you can look out for every day. I mean, a visual check is only the  first part of the path test that an engineer will

00:37:24
look at. Obviously, you know, these are things  that employees can look out for. Absolutely. So if you go and check your staff room, your canteen  after this, maybe you’re in the canteen because it’s a lunchtime learning. So look around, see  what you can spot. So firstly, thanks for that, Matt. We’ve got a question from Ryan and  we’re talking about wall sockets. Ryan asks, is it possible to overload a wall socket?  No. Wall sockets are designed to take, generally the most powerful thing that you’re  going to have in a low risk workplace is something

00:38:14
that takes two forty volts. In an industry? Yeah.  So no, it’s just probably like a fire. Yeah. Fire is probably the highest thing, isn’t it? Because  it’s designed to chuck out a lot of heat. Yeah, yeah. But no, no, it isn’t. You know, if there’s a  problem, then you would have an actual get picked up in an NICR if or You know, you get circuits  tripping if there’s an issue with the circuit. I was going to say, in the unlikely event that you  did, the circuit would just trip and they go so

00:38:50
fast, don’t they? It’s like really, really  fast. So I can’t remember what the speed is, but I remember lectures and telling me it’s like  crazy fast. Yeah, yeah. Without an extension, in an overloaded extension, you should be okay. No,  but good question. It’s an obvious question, and thank you for answering. And so coming back to the  point that you were getting into in multi-tenancy, multi-let buildings, you started to answer that.  who is responsible both for the EICR but also the

00:39:26
PAT and the I’m sorry I’m going to have to say  the FAT testing you know who’s responsible for those things yeah so I think we mentioned looking  at lease agreements and Majority of times it will be the landlord’s responsibility to do the ICR and  make sure appliances are safe, that they supply. If it’s a multi-let or multi-tenure building,  you’re going to have communal areas, a reception, a kitchen, so generally that is the landlord’s  responsibility. The occupiers, the people who come

00:40:04
in and work in there, the tenants, the businesses,  the duty of care is on them to make sure their own appliances are safe. That is almost always the  case. The grey area is usually where the EICR took a lease agreement. So if I’m bringing things  into the building, I’m generally responsible. And if it’s more sort of, you know, it’s the classic,  you turn the building upside down, what falls out? It’s probably, if nothing falls out, it’s probably  the landlord’s responsibility. If it falls out,

00:40:37
it’s probably the tenant’s responsibility. But  there are some grey areas. Read the small print, discuss with your landlord, right? Yeah,  absolutely. Okay, so helpful. So… could you give us i mean you said that there aren’t a hard and  fast you mentioned before um but like what what’s best practice in or for each of the three types  of testing what would you say is best practice for example i’ve got a you know classic office  lots of computers maybe a kettle a microwave in

00:41:06
in the staff room but it’s not it’s not a high  industrial place it’s much more sort of you know standard office environment, what would I expect  to, how often should I have tests? I know I don’t legally have to, but what would be best practice?  Generally office environments are regarded as low risk because your appliances are generally  plugged in all the time. You’re not taking them out and moving stuff around that much. Most  customers will look at twelve, twenty-four months,

00:41:38
one or two years. um for for office equipment um  kitchen equipment probably you know i’m not really allowed to tell anybody what they should be doing  but but yeah often it’s the best practice here we don’t it’s not it’s getting the tents rather than  shoots yeah yeah i don’t have gotten myself into it but yeah yeah um kitchen equipment generally  annually there is industries that require testing more frequently than annually for example and  workshops that might have a lot of power tools,

00:42:11
join your equipment. So, you know, they’re getting  plugged, unplugged all the time, thrown around, thrown in the back of the balance to go on  strike. Sharp things that could cut cables. And the cables, you see an awful lot of damage to  cut cables and expose wires on those. So often power tools, three to six monthly. Wow. Right.  yeah yeah just because they’re very yeah it’s a high it’s a high power thing it’s being moved  it’s designed to be portable it’s very portable

00:42:39
it’s going it’s going offside and they and they  you know work exactly sort of place them nicely in the back of the band you know it’s like yeah  and those cables really get a bashing don’t they see it stretched and you know not everybody’s  good at doing cables properly and uh they treat it like rope and could have says what right yeah  yeah so it is each industry you know is specific to its own sort of frequency now that that’s  really helpful um yeah i mean a lot of that’s

00:43:10
common sense right isn’t it if you’re in a really  you know if the equipment’s getting a beating get it tested regularly like it’s going to keep it  and your staff um uh staff safe so look we’re really uh wow we’ve we’ve talked for like almost  forty minutes already i’ve really enjoyed it um uh we we’ve got some quick fire questions which we  can dive into but again just an invitation for you guys uh watching online um we’ve got uh another  five minutes or so so please do um uh type in any

00:43:39
questions you have and i can ask those to um  uh matt um but um could i so so ask a couple of these questions can i rely on an existing When  I’m buying or taking over a building, or is that something I really should do again? You know,  is it worth the paper it’s written on? If you manage to get your hands on the report when you  move in, there will be a date on there when the EISR was last carried out. And there will also, if  it’s been carried out by a qualified electrician, there would be a recommended retest date period.  So if you move into the premises within that date

00:44:30
period, then it should be okay. However, what  you do need to try and work out is, has there been any alteration to the installation since  the report was done before you did? quite it’s quite common for to add an extra circuit or two  in there who’s done it um and if you know that’s happened you should there should be a minor work  certificate that comes with that work to show it’s been carried out um so you wouldn’t necessarily  need to get it done all over again but you do need

00:45:07
to sort of check for the addendum yeah yeah yeah  you need to make sure that the installation hasn’t been altered since the report. And if it has, you  need the paperwork to back that up to get rid of it. But equally, if you’re not sure, then it’s  not a really, really expensive thing to do unless you’ve got sort of ten or fifteen of them. So  Laura’s got a good question, which is similar sort of vein. As a landlord, are you legally required  to have a new EICR conducted on change of tenancy?

00:45:42
The answer to that is no. As a landlord, you are  legally required to have an EICR every five years. So the change of tenancy, you need to be looking  more at possibly PAT testing, change of tenancy or annually, but EICR in the private letting  industries every five years. And presumably that’s the same for commercial properties as  well. It is, but it’s not a legal obligation in commercial property, whereas private landlords  it is. That’s the difference. Interesting. Okay. I guess because people are sleeping there, they’re  there for much longer potentially periods of time

00:46:30
and they’re there when they’re not actually  conscious. So as we’re, you know, hopefully if people are in office… That legislation only came  in sort of in the last year or two. Before that, it used to be a recommendation to keep on top of  the legislation rather than… It’s probably going to end up with, I’m guessing, it’ll eventually,  you know, these things never ratchet backwards, do they? So it’ll probably eventually be commercial  buildings as well. Interesting one, this,

00:46:58
because you mentioned, I think you mentioned or I  assumed, you know, get the book out or something. How should electrical test records be stored? I’m  thinking, is that now typically stored digitally? Are we looking at QR codes, tags, RFID tags? Is it  just a bit of paper and a book? What should these be stored now? I mean, if you’re using Robinson’s,  James Gunnery, Our reports come on an industry talking about the ICR first coming on an industry  standard report form with industry standard tick

00:47:34
boxes and questions that are all answered by the  engineer and we generally send those out in a PDF. James Gunnery, electronically on email. James  Gunnery, If. the installation is unsatisfactory, we would provide a PDF quote to remedy the  defects that have been found. Again, PAT testing, there would be a list of appliances tested again  on the PDF with corresponding serial numbers. Each PAT testing appliance would have a serial number  put on it on a label hopefully with a green pass on it and then the corresponding serial number  will be written on the report so you can match

00:48:19
them up so if you’re in an office and you see  this this power lead here you can and it’s like eight hundred and five with the number you go in  your office now eight hundred and five’s on the So it’s just paperwork and fixed appliance testing,  the hand dryers, etc. Again, paperwork. And you also get a certificate of compliance to say a path  testing has been carried out to comply with the electrical Electricity regulations. If you’ve  got more of like a physical file store system,

00:48:53
you could just have a folder with like the pack  testing pile. I’m guessing if you’ve got more of like a building management system that this  plug is or this socket is number whatever, it’s got its own little code or whatever, you  probably store the paperwork under that. So the history of that thing is all stored together. But  by doing that, you can create a whole, you know, over the years, you can create a whole, you know,  show a whole period of testing and compliance that’s been carried out. Yeah, yeah. What about  electrical testing? Can that help reduce business

00:49:37
disruption? um well the obvious one is um you  know to minimize the risk of fire there’s no bigger business interrupts than a fire um it can  also pick up it’s not its main purpose in terms of path testing it’s not its main purpose but it can  pick up potential um appliance failure um as well so if you know depending on what the appliance  is can make a difference to how much business interaction it might it may cause if it fails um  so Yeah, potentially. It’s not the main reason

00:50:17
why pat testing. It’s almost like a byproduct. It  could definitely pick up any. I’m just going to take one last question from David. We are out of  time, though. So if you need to drop off, really appreciate you joining us today. I’m just going to  put the banner up as well. to remind you where you can, if any of the questions raised, if there’s  any concerns, questions raised, then do have a look and contact Robinson’s Facility Services on  that phone number or the email or take a look at

00:50:55
the website. So just while that’s ticking along, I  will bring up David’s question. Would PAT testing have to be carried out by an external contractor  or can a competent trained member of staff carry out these tests within the business? So, yes,  a trained member of staff, a competent trained member of staff can carry out PAT testing within  the business. Yes. obviously what they would need we’ve shown you some examples of visual fails  which are fairly straightforward but in addition

00:51:33
to that a full part test would require a machine  test which picks up things that you can’t see such as earth continuity readings polarity insulation  resistance readings they’re all things you can’t see with the naked eye that so you would have  to firstly buy yourself a machine learn how to understand the readings and provide your own  ideally provide your own documentation so yes you can do it yourself um but there is a little  bit of complexity to it but there’s no there’s no

00:52:10
reason why you’re pressing i’m guessing though in  terms of that compliance paper trail etc a you’d want to have that person know documented that they  are actually you know they’ve been on some sort of recognized training course otherwise it’s not just  like well i’ll have a go you know and otherwise like it’s probably not really i mean it might  genuinely make you safer but it doesn’t it’s hard to prove it right um uh so that i i’m guessing  that would help and b i’m guessing you kind of

00:52:40
got a vested interest it it’s rather it’s a bit of  a conflict of interest still it strikes me so it still doesn’t seem like even if you do have some  of the competent they work for you. So are they, you know, are they trying to give you a, you  know, something that they’re probably, you know, if it’s something that’s fifty-fifty, they  probably are. It’ll be all right. You know, possibly, but, but yeah, the answer to that  question is you can’t do it in-house through

00:53:06
training, although it’s like anything, you  know, you can, if you’ve got the right tools, you can do it yourself, but if you haven’t,  sometimes it’s, it’s easy to contract it out. Um, So yeah, it’s certainly always worth getting  a quote from an external contractor and then weighing away the options because it’s not always  as expensive as you think it might be. Well, look, Matt, really appreciate you sharing your expertise  with us, taking the time. Thank you so much to

00:53:33
everybody who’s watching. If you haven’t seen our  other videos, do take a look at robinsonsfs.com slash video. You can see all of the other webinars  that we’ve done on a whole range of safety topics that you’ll find those really useful. But for now,  just to say thank you for joining us and I’ll see you. I will see you on the next webinar. Again,  thank you, Matt, for joining us. Thank you.