Current Health and Safety legislation is in place to make sure that all electrical equipment used for construction work or within any other hostile operating environment must be tested and labeled as such by an authorised electrically skilled person.The reson such tools must be tested more frequently is that the environment in which they are used is more harsh and the risk of them becoming damaged is so much greater because of this.
This is not something that office workers need to be concerned with in general, as office equipment does not fall into this catagory, and therefore annual testing is sufficient for this type of equipment.
Health And Safety Construction companies, site workers, tradesmen and other people who work in factories where electrical equipment is used and where electrical tools are employed in a "potentially harmful" environment need to be aware that all electrical appliances must be subjected testing and labelling. Some good examples of electrical items that require testing and labelling would include:
- Power tools
- Portable transformers
- Pedestal lighting
- Heating appliances
- Extension leads
- pc power cables
- TV's & monitors
- Corporation owned computers
- Battery charging appliances
- Notebook workstations
- Any privately owned electrical equipment used on site
- Xerox machines
- Isolation devices
- Fans
- Air conditioning and extraction units
- Cutting tackle
To ensure that an electrical device has been tested and determine whether the pat test is still valid look for an electrical test sticker that will show the devices last date of testing and whether the item was deemed as safe.
If an electrical item has failed a test it should have a Caution Do Not Use warning sticker on it.
Should you see an electrical appliance that is in an unsafe location, make sure that you report it to a health and safety officer within your workplace so that curative action can be taken to avoid any incident occuring.
Pat testing and correct labeling of tested appliances is there to protect everyone against electrical hazards, It not only safeguards the workers but also visitors to your site and the business as a whole by reducing the risk of fire.
By ensuring an effective health and safety policy is in place a company can attain lower overheads through many means including reduced insurance expenditure, there are also many other beneficial factors to take into account such as better staff moral, a fall in absenteeism and increased productivity.
This is before even mentioning that many businesses will only deal with other companies that have an impeccable health and safety record. Health and safety is often misunderstood as something that employers must spend money on and can expect no return for their investment, this is not the case, money spent on health and safety can be extremely proffitable for a business in the long run. Hiab Training
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