PAT questions again (Sorry)

[Ponty Massive]

Afternoon all,

I've been asked to carry out some PAT testing for an existing customer. This isn't something I normally do. Was thinking about it a few months ago however now it looks as though I'm going to have to do it.

I have a few areas to cover. About 150 items in one location (20 miles away). 30-40 items at another three locations based about 80 miles away and at the main HQ I’m guessing in the region of 400-500 which is also about 80 miles away.

So can anyone recommend a PAT tester which can generate results via a laptop and possibly print barcoded labels? I thinking this would be the best route to go down or would you think it's not worth it with this amount? Would it be better to by a cheaper tester and write the stuff out by hand?

Also, I've heard vast differences in price from 75p to £3.00 per item. I'm guessing you should be looking at an average of 10 items per hour? Which would give a price of £2.50 per item (£25) but if I gave this price would probably not get the job and upset any future works!!!

Rock and a hard place!!!!

Any comments good or bad welcomed!

Cheers
Ponty

 

[markc123]

I've got a hand held PAT tester, and write about my hand on proper pat certs...

We charge roughly £1.50 an item, i know its not wise to give prices out because of the competition but im praying for someone to better them haha pat testing is the vain of my life.

Seriouslly though....if ure not gonna be doing it alot and its just this 1 job regardless of the size of it....id recommend just a cheap one....not so cheap you cant trust it, but you get my drift....if its going to become a regular occurance, and you hope for PAT work then defo opt for high-end gear.

If you buy cheap you buy twice as they say.

 

[funkymonkeytwo]

If that's the only pat testing your doing hire one buddy as you will lose money buying a decent tester if that's all your doing and I think price you charge depends on your location I'm near Cambridge and wouldn't charge less than £2.25 per item, hope that helps

 

[markc123]

...also check that whoever ure doing it for doesn't want you to provide the 2377 qual, some companys require it, all though what a load of s h i t e it is. pat testing isn't rocking science, just need to make sure you have a good understand of what to expect and look for.

 

[Ponty Massive]

Thanks Mark. On an average day, how many items can you get done? What hand tester have you got? What pat certs do you use?

Thanks a lot
Ponty

 

[Ponty Massive]

If that's the only pat testing your doing hire one buddy as you will lose money buying a decent tester if that's all your doing and I think price you charge depends on your location I'm near Cambridge and wouldn't charge less than £2.25 per item, hope that helps

Didn't think of hiring.......

 

[funkymonkeytwo]

http://m.hss.com/mt/www.hss.com/g/67230/Portable-Appliance-Tester.html

 

[markc123]

Ive got the martindale handypat 600, decent piece of kit really...but its expensive to be fair, you want something cheaper, don't fall into the category of me and pay over the price for something that hasnt probably broke even for me yet, Don't do that much PAT testing, and ive never really spent a whole day at it really. Suppose if you proper gunned it, and everything was handy you could get absolutley s h i t loads done. Probably on average about 4/5mins an appliance, for the visual and all the correct tests and to record.

The cert pad ive got is one from the eca. You'll probably be able to download and print off some from somewhere i woulda thought though.

 

[markc123]

....in reference to the above comments, hiring is a great idea, and something you could look into.....but if you're like me you'll want your own piece of kit. IMO best to have your own, only problem is that you'll have to have it calibrated every year....and if ure not using it much its a ballache.

 

[Former Sponsor TM]

Hi Ponty, we supply a range of PAT testing kits manufactured by all of the UK's leading brands of PAT testing equipment.

Based upon the number of appliances located at both the local location and the head office of your client, it may be worth investing in a system that will download to a PC/Laptop where you can print off appliance certificates and registers.

However like Mark has stated, an investment will need to be worth your while.

How about hiring a tester? We can still offer a forum sponsors 5% discount from our hire units as well as new equipment that we sell. We have quite a few different models of PAT testers on our hire fleet, and we can also offer you a download service so that you can produce a professional PDF report to your client (rather than you wasting time by handwriting certificates for numerous appliances).

If you would like to discuss, please feel welcome to call us 01132 48 99 66, and we can talk through the various kits and whether it is worthwhile investing.

test-meter

 

[Octopus]

I use a metrel unit which allows you to add the "location" "office" and "item name" into it, plus there are auto short cuts for different types of products. Once done I download it to my PC and use excel to produce a professional listing which is attached to the invoice.

Pays your money take your choice.

PS my unit also tests 110v kit BUT needs to be plugged into a 110v transformer to work, and I've got a few adapter cables to test 110v kit too.

My pricing is based on:

1 - 49 items
50 -99 items
100+ items

I've not yet done over 100 items as its so boring.

 

[oldtimer]

I got the KT71 PAT bundle from Test meter and I am very happy with it plus I only do rentals so the most I have done is 35 plus I have made up template docs and fill them in on Word then convert them to PDF for emailing . Wont make a lot of money on it but it compliments the business plus I dont charge per item I charge for 12 items and it works for me.

Also depends what you are trying to do ie if its a one of ie 150 items then maybe hire one

 

[grantr37]

Didn't think of hiring.......

Hello,
I have done testing like this before, thousands of items until my head popped off and rolled away......in lots of different places for different companies, with all the awkward people sending me away from office buildings/workshops until closing time only for me to come back and find them still sitting at desks 2 hours after closing on facebook and itunes not wanting to budge....

I will help you out with any advice or tricks of the trade that you need....

you will need a downloading PAT tester for this, forget about doing it by hand as its too big a number of items potentially....

They will want the information in print out as well as on PDF so that they can email it around all their different departments, you'd be surprised just how many people where you are going to test will want a copy for various reasons, I ended up giving out the documents on USB memory sticks until they kept losing them and it got too expensive, thenafter I switched to sending them/giving them a DVD and 2 copies of a printout(which ended up like a 200 page book) as well as emailing them, that way they could not say that anybody missed out on receiving them...

The ideal machine to get is a Fluke 6500 PAT tester, as well as taking your Multi Function Tester with you to do large industrial machinery.....the Fluke 6200 downloads but does not have a keypad so you will need the Fluke 6500, this will let you load in a description of each item as you do it to be transferred onto the PC for printing and saving onto DVD as a PDF from the software....

you will also need to buy 15 or so IEC leads and a Dozen or so figure of 8 leads from ebay (cheapest place) as well as a pile of Plugs (screwfix is ok for quantities) I would say 30 plug tops, and also half a dozen Blue 220v commando in line plugs to replace broken ones...


Add to that a drum of 3 core white flex 2.5mm and a drum of 3 core black flex 1.75mm as well as some Black 2.5mm flex, a pile of 13A,10A,7A,5A,3A and 2Amp fuses and some heat shrink tubing.....


A thing you will really need is labels on big rolls 500 at a time.....these are on ebay for whatever you need.....I was working for a company doing PAT testing for 3 weeks once and they supplied me with a pile of sheets totaling 170 labels, which were gone in 2 days, asked for more and got ummed and ahhd at so ended up buying my own from ebay and waiting for next day delivery.....better to have them in hand...


you can rent a Fluke 6200 easily online but nobody wants to rent the 6500 out, they only sell them, think its a requirement by the suppliers to make sure they sell them and that people don't just rent them as and when needed...

shop around online for a Fluke 6500 as the price varies wildly from £700 to £3,500 (one well known worldwide electro and components company with a box of catalogues does this high price) and look at renting either a Fluke 6200 or a Megger PAT tester to go alongside this....so that you can hire/bring along an assistant to help you cover the PAT testing over the different sites, they could do the small ones with a basic tester while you get the big sites done with a bells and whistles tester, if you try to do all the sites yourself then by the time you get half way through the 800 items site they will be moaning and saying you are taking too long, I had this once when I was at a site on my own that in the end totaled over 1,700 items......after 3 days the company manager was moaning that "why are you not done yet its only a stupid sticker " and complained to the owners.... the items were spread out over offices, workshops, stores,warehouses,garages,sheds,building sites,canteens and newly opened buildings over a 20 mile spread, was about 14 locations.....so you need an assistant helping out (either an apprentice or a sparks mate)


I will have a think and give you an idea of how to go about doing this so that nobody loses out and everybody is happy...

 

[Ponty Massive]

Thank you for your inputs. Think I'll be going for this http://www.test-meter.co.uk/product...metrel-gammapat-pro-pat-tester-with-software/ Test-Meter, what's your thoughts?

Just need to confirm the prices with the customer before we start.

Will let you know if there happy to pay for proper service or are looking for the sticker brigade

Ponty!

 

[oldtimer]

Thing is if you get a downloadable tester then in effect your are tooling up for a lot of PAT testing hence why I got a manual unit as I just don't like doing it lol