Every industry has a minority of people who give it a bad name, for ‘providing a service’; in the case of PAT tests, we refer to them as “Sticker Jockey’s”: they are not PAT testers, they are a waste of time.
They may have the qualification to say that they are PAT testers, they may even have been doing the job for a long time, but they are not authentic PAT testers that industry experts would recommend.
Who are the “Sticker Riders”?
They are people who run around a site “testing” as many items as they can in the shortest amount of time to earn the most money possible. I say “test” in quotes because what they tend to do is one of two methods:
> They will do complete tests in approx. 10% of your appliances and then plagues the results on the other 90% of items
> They will not carry out electrical or visual tests of any type of device.
Whichever of these you have working for you, you are:
• Wasting your money
• Without protection
• And you may still have faulty appliances that go undetected
All you’re getting is a cute little sticker that sticks to each of your appliances, and that’s what you’re paying for. It can also be a price tag since that’s all it’s worth. Then it could be that you’re paying someone to vandalize your property or put a 3p price tag on each item, because the tag won’t be worth more than that.
And how much did the PAT testing company charge you? 50 pence per item: They have made a profit of 47 pence on each item you own.
If you have 1000 items it will cost you £500 for some £30 worth of stickers.
You don’t get anything for your money except that sticker, and if you’re lucky enough to get certificates and a results log book, there’s a good chance they’re fake.
How easy is it for a company to send you a list of reports that say “approved, approved, approved”?
Try it yourself; open Excel, in Column 1 put the location (Main Office) in column 2 put the description of the item (Computer), in column 3 write “Pass” – there you go, go, it’s that easy.
How did this happen?
When you asked for quotes, the reputable company offered a fair price, then another company lowered them. You chose the company with the cheapest rate without thinking about any other factors.
The first company offered to test their 500 items for £1 per item, they said it would take 2 days to complete, at a rate of approx. 30 articles per hour.
The second company said they could test their 500 items for 50 pence per item, and they would do it in a day. Wow, what an offer! Half the price and half the time, that’s great, we’ll book them. But did you think about what you’re getting?
If company A, which was established for 3 years, completed more than 30,000 PAT tests in 2 days to get the job done right, how can company B, which was formed last month, do it in half the time? This is with the same number of people doing the work: 1 person.
Let’s do the math; Company A charges £1 for each item, at 500 items, that’s £500. It takes 2 days so it’s £250 per day which is a decent daily rate. From £250.00 the company has to pay for fuel, insurance, certificates, labels, equipment, etc. So, after all that, the daily profit (and therefore salary) is £200 (rough figures). The engineer worked 8 hours, plus he had a ½ hour break for lunch, so he was earning £25.00 an hour when he worked (the industry average rate).
Company B charges 50 pence per item, at 500 items that’s £250.00. If they did the job properly it would take 2 days which would be £125 per day, after costs that’s approx. £75 per day, or £9.38 per hour. Still not a bad salary, I hope you say.
Have you considered what else you get from company A? Time spent in the office collecting and downloading your correct results and giving them to you along with your certificates.
So company B would have earned less than half if they did the job in 2 days, so they do it in one day to get the most revenue. However, how do they test 60 articles per hour when it takes a year to test 30 articles? The time it takes to check the inside of a plug, check the cord and the appliance takes the same amount of time for each person, and the minimum time the testing machine allows to complete a test is the same for each machine.
There is another important factor to consider here: you hired a large company to do this job at 50 pence per item, then you subcontracted the job to a local contractor, at 25 pence per item. That contractor, at 25 pence per item, has to make all 500 items in 1 day, to earn £125 for 8 hours of hard work. It is impossible to do everything correctly in this time.
Company A takes 2 minutes to complete each test, but Company B can complete the same test in 1 minute. How can this be? You can’t… you can’t without jumping big curves.
An electrical test that was not completed correctly means hazards may not be marked, meaning you could have been “tested” and have “PAT test certificates” but still not be protected from potential electrocution or fire .
Don’t take chances; Get your PAT tested by a reputable, unique PAT testing company that will give you the PAT testing service you need at the right price, covering what you need, so you’re protected.
