At first glance, when a person hears the expression FAT PAT, it may just sound someone’s overweight friend or family member but the actual explanation of this is so much more important to any successful and conscientious business. The acronym FAT is an abbreviation for Fixed Appliance Testing, while the term PAT means Portable Appliance Testing. Both of these terms are becoming more prevalent in today’s business world and indeed have already become a legal requirement for many business insurance policies. These guidelines seem to be presenting to employers on an ever more frequent basis, but what exactly do these terms mean for business owners and staff, and why are they so significant?

Fixed Appliance Testing is a vital safety requirement that needs to be routinely carried out on any immobile electrical device within a business location. This process needs to be undertaken by a qualified engineer in any office building that has even one fixed or portable electric appliance on the business premises. Often, a company may need to have a number of stationary electrical appliances available for staff to perform tasks within the office building so it is imperative that management are confident that any of these fixed electrical devices can always be safely used by all personnel.

The same testing guidelines also apply to any Portable Electrical Appliances within an office space. These Portable items of office equipment often range from PC’s, Printers, Fax Machines and the ever important Coffee Machine.

To further understand the undertaking of the Appliance Testing procedure, it can be useful for a business to know what this practice should entail.  For both Fixed and Portable items, all units will be bar coded and uniquely identified and a comprehensive asset list with all pass or fail statuses will be made available. A compliance cert should be issued afterwards upon full completion of all tested items.

For any conscientious business that has undertaken to engage an engineer to provide correct certification for its Fixed and Portable Appliance devices, it must ensure that the individual who is undertaking the testing process is fully qualified to do so. Any engineer who has been commissioned to complete these procedures should always make sure that documented proof of their qualifications to perform this process can be made available to any business that may wish to see them. It is also helpful that copies of these documents are provided to any enterprise that has commissioned the Appliance Testing request.