Electrical Testing and Tagging - WH&S gone mad or just a load of crap?

[n45048]

One thing that has bothered me for a while now is all this time, effort and let's not forget the expense that organisations fork out to 'test and tag' electrical cables and equipment on a regular basis.

For those not familiar with the process, it involves connecting a piece of equipment or an appliance AC power lead to a testing device and depending on what your testing, will usually perform an earth resistance test or polarity test as well as a visual inspection of the item and lead. A label is then applied to the lead to indicate it has "passed" or "failed". Of course these tests are far from exhaustive.

There seems to be a fair bit of money involved in this industry from companies charging upwards of $5 per test (per item) to $400+ "certifications" to enable someone to connect a plug into a socket, press a button and apply an adhesive label.

I mean fair enough, testing equipment or cables that are used in harsh environments I can understand but your stock standard IEC computer power cable in an office supposedly needs yearly testing? I don't buy it.

I bring this up as we just had a piece of radio equipment at work almost go up in smoke (in fact it did smell of burning) despite having being 'tested and tagged' a few weeks ago. The exact cause is unknown (our techs took it away and the report came back as "faulty").

Assuming it takes 2 minutes to test a single item (including disconnecting, attaching a label, moving onto the next item) at $5 per item, that's $150 per hour! Not bad money in my books.

Are we that crazy about Workplace Health & Safety these days or is it all just a bullshit money making exercise made up by someone who has an adhesive label fetish?

Update: The fault caused the neutral terminal on the IEC plug/socket to overheat. The burning smell was the plastic around the IEC plug melting inside the device socket. The smell was noticed some 12+ hours before the problem was discovered.

[RJFreeman]

I think like many WH&S things, there have been and are, instances where Test and Tag was and is a good idea.
Like you say equipment in harsh environments or that are often mistreated (tradesman equipment, Building sites etc) a regular test and tag program makes sense.

But like many other WH&S ideas it gets carried to an extreme which has moved onto the ludicrous, not only that I have also seen examples where Test and Tag operators have been blatantly ripping off the client, for example Churches where even speaker leads have been tested and tagged (and I am guessing, the Church was charged for another test).

I have also seen instances where extension leads had been tested and tagged but had a damaged sheath telling me that the person doing the testing probably didn't have a clue what the point of testing was.....

[Someone]

For those not familiar with the process, it involves connecting a piece of equipment or an appliance AC power lead to a testing device and depending on what your testing, will usually perform an earth resistance test or polarity test as well as a visual inspection of the item and lead. A label is then applied to the lead to indicate it has "passed" or "failed". Of course these tests are far from exhaustive.

They are supposed to be quite extensive when done correctly, but few if any testers will do this as they have no incentive to weed out dangerous equipment. My favourite example was a contracted company who came in and tested nothing but a single point earth bond and the insulation from live/neutral, happily tagging as safe a power supply with EXPOSED SCREW TERMINAL MAINS TERMINATIONS that you could easily touch with your fingers.

No way in hell that passes compliance testing but they didnt care.

There seems to be a fair bit of money involved in this industry from companies charging upwards of $5 per test (per item) to $400+ "certifications" to enable someone to connect a plug into a socket, press a button and apply an adhesive label.

Last time I checked there is no certification required to do testing in Australia, merely a competent person. Large organisations will however want to cover their arses and go for someone who has some worthless paper sheet with their name on it as they do not want to assume the responsibility (possible liability) of determining who is competent.

I mean fair enough, testing equipment or cables that are used in harsh environments I can understand but your stock standard IEC computer power cable in an office supposedly needs yearly testing? I don't buy it.

Entering service from new it would have a label applied to note the date and period for retest but no test is required as its assumed that the importer (but more likely the manufacturer to meet the importers standards) has already confirmed the safety. A fixed appliance such as a computer could (and should) have a long period between tests such as 3 or 5 years, 2, 3 and 6 months are used for portable appliances on exposed building sites, where as something used in a wet environment might warrant a yearly test. Its about risk management and left to the tester to determine, so of course if they are getting paid by the test they have an incentive to increase the frequency.

[SeanB]

Funny enough the most common cause of electrocution and house fires here is ...............




illegal wiring, using stolen electricity. you even have shops who sell a pack of speaker wire, insulation tape and a socket outlet, along with a cheap pair of combination pliers and a screwdriver. 2 core 0.5mm cable, not double insulated, and an earthed ultra flimsy and cheap socket outlet. With no instructions or even a manufacturer name aside from a store provided price tag or in house barcode.

Next comes the obligatory "unattended candle on a table" left burning with the children inside and the parents at the shabeen or spaza shop. Then the "non approved" paraffin stove.


then far down the list, Arson, or an electrical cooker left on.

[David_AVD]

Last time I checked the AS/NZ standard specified that items where the wiring doesn't get moved (office equipment, etc) should have a 5 year test interval. 

Extension leads (not semi permanently installed), power tools, etc have a 6 month test interval which is not unreasonable.

I do agree about the shonky test and tag companies.  It's a licence to print money and hard to enforce as they can always sat that it was damaged after they tagged it. 

We often see equipment come if for repair that was tagged very recently, but has obvious signs of (old) damage to the power cord.

It's as if the visual part of the inspection gets completely overlooked.  The cable shouldn't even get plugged into the tester if it fails the visual test.

[Howardlong]

Back when I did real work, I frequently worked on customer sites in offices. One day I was in a <mega-corp> office in Edinburgh, plugged in my laptop, and immediately out of nowhere out popped this fella to do a PAT test on it, and popped a sticker on it to prove it, and buggered off.

The weird thing was that this only ever happened at that one <mega-corp> office. Nobody gave a crap at any of their many other offices.

In general, over here in the old dart, it is a bit 'elf 'n safety gone bananas.

[benjamin545]

i work for a company that installs things like fire alarm systems and sound systems in commercial buildings in Florida USA.  if you have a fire alarm system you have to have an annual inspection by a licensed company. they say all sorts of crap about what to check and how to check it in the handbooks and whatnot and its suppose to be about safety and making sure the building is safe and will properly notify occupants. the reality is however, 95% of building owners don't care one bit. all they want is that sticker on the panel every year so if a fire marshal happens to come by they are all good. many companies basically just sell stickers. send a tech out there for an hour, plop sticker, write out report, leave an hour later, bill 1000$. i don't think ive seen an inspection that was less than 300$ and thats like the tiniest do nothing setup in a place the size of a porta-poty. we don't do that, we actual do all the bull crap of checking the devices and whatnot.

point being, when a building catches fire, and the system doesn't activate when it by all reason should have, and someone dies, and the fire marshal asks the building owner to provide paperwork showing he was in compliance with having an up to date inspection, and the owner does so, and the fire marshal goes the the company thats name is on the paper work and asks why the system they certified to work properly didn't work and someone died, you have three choices.

point out the note in the paperwork showing a deficiency in the system that would explain why it did not work (shift blame on owner)

say, "well, it worked properly when we tested it" (shift the blame on god)

or, take full responsibility for it (maybe with some persuasion from the courts) and have your required liability insurance pay out your expense.


so in the end its all a huge circus act of shifting responsibility and blame around until eventually if anyone actually is going to take responsibility for a bad situation its a liability insurance company somewhere.

[HudsonLangwell]

I've seen that more than once... had a cause around somewhere that was marked even though the external insulating material was damaged in more than one position.

If there is something dodgy about a cause that they tag and it causes a issue then they're in for a world of issues.

Although they can probably just argue that the lead was excellent when they examined it, and must have damaged afterwards or something like that.

[German_EE]

When I was working on elevators we used to get our test meters and leads safety checked every six months but that was because a brief electric shock then a fall down a ten-floor elevator shaft could sting a little. Outside work I have only ever had one item of equipment tested, I was in hospital and I wasn't allowed to plug in my (Apple made) iPod power supply until it had been tested and stickered. At the time I had a blood clot on one lung so electrocution was the least of my worries.

An office environment? Give it an annual check for physical damage and you'll probably be fine.