PAT testing labels: A torch in an Otherwise Dark Cave

PAT testing labels play a very important part in the display of potential hazards associated with the use of electrical appliances in the United Kingdom. PAT tests themselves are tests performed by certified technicians which gauge the safety of electrical appliances in people’s homes. The word stands for Portable Appliance Testing, and it is more correctly and completely known as “in-service inspection and testing of electrical equipment”. Without the display of the status of an appliances safety, technicians and people employed to work on appliances would be subject to a greater risk as they would essentially be walking into an unknown danger.

The primary way for a potential danger to be marked on appliances is through the application of PAT testing labels. After a technician, or even someone who simply knows how to test appliances with a general understanding of common safety, tests an appliance at someone’s home, a commercial setting, place of industry or anywhere else, they apply one of these strips. The strips serve as labels, and will say one of three things: ‘Passed’, ‘Tested for Electrical Safety’, or ‘DO NOT USE’. It’s easy to see from these three simple labels how important it would be to label a machine that is could be dangerous with a ‘DO NOT USE’ label, and how it would be also important to know and useful to anyone who is operating the equipment to have the knowledge that the machine was tested for electrical safety, or even that it has passed and is safe to use.

PAT testing labels look like simple stickers that you can place on a tested machine, and oftentimes the information contained on the front includes such information as the appliance I.D., a place to put the name of who inspected it, the date that the test took place, a place to put the date of when the appliance should be tested next, and of coarse a place to designate the level of safety that has been established by the test.

Oftentimes, and in recent years, companies have started to offer customizable PAT testing labels. Strips such as these can be offered in color coded forms, have different names on them, or the layout of the strip itself can be changed, but one thing is the most important: that all the crucial information is included and readily visible to people who may find the information extremely important in the work that they do.

PAT testing labels are without a doubt a very crucial part to both the safety of employees who need to test or work on electrical appliances, and the owners of the appliances who need to know whether it’s safe to use the equipment, and even if the equipment is usable in the first place. Without these important yet oftentimes overlooked pieces of hazard prevention, there would most likely be many more accidents in terms of public safety and harm to employees, so luckily with a little help from these labels light can be shed in an otherwise dark area.

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