PAT Testing - Charges!

[grantr37]

Why can't someone charging 79p do a proper job? Surely you have to look at each company on their own merits? Does someone charging £3 per appliance guarantee a better service than some one charging £0.79p per appliance? Yes PAT is mundane, but if a company can slimline their business to be as efficient as possible, surely 200 - 250 tests a day at £0.79 per appliance is pretty good money for a days work. If you are prepaired to work hard and efficiently then yes you can do a proper job and still make good money even if you are charging only £0.79p. It's not about the price but more about the morals of the inspector carrying out the testing whether they are charging £0.79p or £3.

I might have known that these ones would be reading this forum, 3 posts to pipe in.....just like the recruitment agencies who get a username for here......


:rolleyes2:

 

[grantr37]

Two day course at your local college will get you a C&G in PAT testing (it's an 80% pass mark). You don't need NICEIC registration. You'll need a decent PAT tester to do the numbers so a Seaward Megatest 350 with all the trimmings at £2,100.00 (probably plus VAT). The down side - you've got to find 1,000 items a week that need testing and someone that's happy to pay £1.80 a pop! I've just been offered 25p an item and there's 2000 items waiting for me that I have to clear in a week!!!!

they are taking advantage at 25p..........you won't even make the money to cover your filled roll............tell them to ram it...

if you were to complete each test in 60 seconds from start to finish, including finding, shutting down/turning off, testing, checking flex and fuse...stickering, putting back, filling in a written form(or keying in information on a tablet or the pat tester keypad)this would take you 33 Hours and 20 Minutes without going home or sleeping...then when home at night typing up a site report, printing off the PAT sheets for the whole site, printing out a second copy of the PAT sheets which they will want as well, putting them onto 2 or 3 DVD copies, converting to PDF and emailing them as well.....they will be on the phone if a copy is not sitting in their email for 8:59 Am...then you will have a hard time getting paid....they will offer you 25 pence an item then say that you are ripping them off and refuse to pay...or take 8 months to send you a rubber cheque in the mail....


there will be lots of broken or damaged appliances, dangerous connections, bad plugs, wrong/linked out fuses etc....they will already know about this but not care...and when you tell them that there are broken/dangerous appliances there will be a long amount of time spent arguing about them still wanting to use those things, they will either kick you off site and say you are at it, or wait until you leave, pull off the danger sticker and start using again until somebody gets hurt at which point they will blame you....don't even think about cutting off the flex and putting in the skip either or they will be blaming you personally for the loss of the item(s)...


I have done PAT testing before in office buildings where there were large numbers of staff who brought in electrical goods from home to the office and would not let you pat test them, if something goes wrong they would just say that you missed the items and breached your agreement to test every last thing in visual sight...



Go into a wholesalers shop, or online and buy a roll of 2000 PAT stickers.......that will probably be about £80 (+VAT) then get 300 Fail stickers for good measure, probably another £30 (+VAT) an assortment of fuses big enough for a 2000 item job.....better get 400 because that's how many you will probably have to change....another £50.00 odd if you get them at a good price....


Then you would be best to buy 150 plugs at £1.30 each, because going by the sound of it that's how many you will probably need, if not more...

PAT testing machine costs £2,000 to £3,000, then there's Diesel......parking charges.....printer paper, printer Ink, Sticker printer Ink, envelopes, postage stamps, Blank DVD's....your phone Bill, your mobile Bill, PAT stickers...


to do 2000 items in a week (in office terms that's 4 1/2 days) you would need to hire 3 other people so that there's 4 of you in total going like idiots non stop, that's another 3 people, so based on that that would be another £900.00 in basic level wages, NI contributions etc...

Doing the 2,000 items is going to end up COSTING YOU about £3,500 to £3,700 all in (£1.75 to £1.85p an item) and all they are willing to pay is £0.25p an item, they must be thinking that you are an idiot willing to work for free and at a loss as well...

I have never done pat testing for any company that demands a set strict time limit like that before.....2000 items by the end of the week...for one person...

I would offer them to do the testing at £2.00 an item take it or leave it, tell them that this is the going rate otherwise you are not interested...


This is obviously a big site and therefore a big company and can by this reasoning afford the going price, do you think that there will only be the 2000 items? there will probably be quite a lot more that they will want "rolled in" to the price....

Run away from this as fast as you can....

 

[grantr37]

I forgot to add, you will take time to move about the site/offices on foot lugging test equipment, and don't forget to buy a few dozen new IEC leads and a couple of rolls of new 3 core flex....you will also need to buy a roll of "visual inspection passed" stickers for phone chargers and those other things such as DAB Radios etc, otherwise you will get a few jobsworth office workers and others thinking to themselves "sparky make too much money I will fix you" and moaning along the lines of "you missed this and this and this" which happens as well, the person at the company that writes the cheque going around saying "what about this, and this, and those" gesturing towards mobile chargers and the likes....

for this number of appliances you will also need Asset Register stickers with numbers and a Barcode on them....otherwise there could be problems for you there as well...and look out for staff bringing in broken desk lamps and laptops hoping for you to repair them on site...

 

[grantr37]

Thanks for the info - they did a day rate and I quote "If you don't feel confident you'll get through the numbers we do a day rate of £50 and expect you to do 300 items" How do you type a rasberry!

does the name sound like an Eagle or a Buzzard or something similar? don't answer that one....

I bet it is owned by somebody who owns a recruitment Agency as well....

Cleaners get a day rate higher than that, and they get given a van, a uniform and holiday pay, as well as quite often life assurance and private medical as well.....and the work load is not stressed....

 

[grantr37]

Another old thread prized open again to annoy me

 

[SPARTYKUS]

Never done PAT testing but got asked by the local church if I would, only 15 or so items, other chap let them down.

so bought the Kewtech adaptor for my MFT1552 and said I'd charge 1/2 what the other bloke did seeing as its the church.

A dehumidifier had no fuse cover on the plug and the flex was about to exit the back so fixed that. Couldn't charge in the end so did it as a "donation"

a week later found my ad in the church local booklet was upgraded to the back page - no charge

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

...so bought the Kewtech adaptor for my MFT1552....

@SPARTYKUS Did this do the job OK? I've been asked to do some stuff at a small company which doesn't warrant laying out big pennies.

 

[wildgoose]

I keep a PAT machine in the van for occasional use. The kit is calibrated, I am PAT C&G qualified and believe I do a good job when asked. I do PAT usually as a loss leader or as a favour to the client and charge around £3.50 per item - depending on distance travelled. When doing the tests, I usually find other work that needs recommending, and this is the sole reason I do it!

Putting it bluntly the contributors who have claimed they make a living out of doing it for £0.75 per label, will probably fit into one of the following groups:-
1, They are extremely lucky by having everything very accessible or even laid out in front of them ready to test beforehand eg: lots of hand helds and IEC leads.
2, They are label sticking cheats who don't complete the required level of testing.
3, Semi retired and bored, so willing to work for beer money.
4, Forum Trolls trying to get a response.

The sooner they review and properly regulate this whole sorry mess the better. I'm reluctant to say it but it might not be a bad thing if the Scams get involved - providing they don't ruin it by being greedy and over complicated to justify their existence!!

 

[SPARTYKUS]

@SPARTYKUS Did this do the job OK? I've been asked to do some stuff at a small company which doesn't warrant laying out big pennies.

In a word....yes. it allows you to do the essentials.

the MFT is a PAT tester already really, PAT tests arent special they're just a subset of normal sparky testing.

in fact the lady in the church said she used to do the PAT testing at the university she worked at before she retired (she went on a course so I guess that would deem her competant).

If you were doing loads i can see the merit in a dedicated piece of kit as it speeds it up.

but I had 15 to do.

i bought a roll of " fail" labels but wish I hadn' t for this job, the failure I found I just fixed.

i wonder if I will ever use it again! Another string as has been said. Can be useful to be set up to do this for a complete job.

 

[SPARTYKUS]

I keep a PAT machine in the van for occasional use. The kit is calibrated, I am PAT C&G qualified and believe I do a good job when asked. I do PAT usually as a loss leader or as a favour to the client and charge around £3.50 per item - depending on distance travelled. When doing the tests, I usually find other work that needs recommending, and this is the sole reason I do it!

Putting it bluntly the contributors who have claimed they make a living out of doing it for £0.75 per label, will probably fit into one of the following groups:-
1, They are extremely lucky by having everything very accessible or even laid out in front of them ready to test beforehand eg: lots of hand helds and IEC leads.
2, They are label sticking cheats who don't complete the required level of testing.
3, Semi retired and bored, so willing to work for beer money.
4, Forum Trolls trying to get a response.

The sooner they review and properly regulate this whole sorry mess the better. I'm reluctant to say it but it might not be a bad thing if the Scams get involved - providing they don't ruin it by being greedy and over complicated to justify their existence!!

The sooner domestic electrickery is made more like the gas safe model the better.

and the scams are removed and replaced with one, non profit making, govt run assessing body.

 

[oldtimer]

I do electrical repairs for rented properties and kept away from PAT as they used a PAT company but because some private landlords started to ask for a couple of jobs that included PAT or else I will use somebody else statement I bought the Kewtech KT71 bundle and at first thought this is a loss leader but as long as it pays for itself then fine so one year on and it has more than paid for itself I don't keep it in the motor as it only comes out when I get booked to do PAT.

Thing is for me its not their to make money but its their to help me make money ie Put some lights up fix a broken switch,fan,socket repair the burglar alarm O and I need 12 items PAT tested as well so happy days.

I will never compete with the sticker junkies and have even turned down a 450 item job and the thing is we and the Schemies ie NICEIC all know they are not doing it right. I Know this as I have come at the back of them and I get comments such as why are you changing fuses and unrolling the hoover lead out the last crowd never did . So I charge a fixed price for 12 items then a set cost for a fuse and plugtop and even on a quite day going out for a couple of hours to PAT test a flat with the landlord in tow breaks the day up but the thing is still don't like having to do it but I have no option

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

In a word....yes. it allows you to do the essentials...... but I had 15 to do.....

I think I'll get one then. From what he counted out to me in the pub he reckons 25-30 pieces, so I reckon 40. Just about pay for the PatAdaptor but fingers in pies as they (who?) say.

 

[oldtimer]

I think I'll get one then. From what he counted out to me in the pub he reckons 25-30 pieces, so I reckon 40. Just about pay for the PatAdaptor but fingers in pies as they (who?) say.

I had no option as I needed to get a tester but like every boy toy you try to get more bang for you buck hence why the KT71 ie no batteries small and light £45 for calibration the bundle versions has lead adaptors and a good carry case only had to buy a laptop lead adaptor from from fleabay for £4 and funny enough have never used it got my template documents made up on the PC as 90% are emailed but as for doing 200-300 a day forget it as I know I am in a niche part of the market where the big boys don't do the small jobs

 

[hazelm]

What PAT testing? Portable Appliance Testing testing?

The misnomer!!!


In-Service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment - and it covers appliances connected by means of a flex outlet.

 

[oldtimer]

What PAT testing? Portable Appliance Testing testing?

The misnomer!!!


In-Service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment - and it covers appliances connected by means of a flex outlet.

Agree but it so ingrained with people that when I get called I say it actually ISI&TEE and the reply is well I want some PAT testing done can you do it.