PAT Testing Is The Only Way To Comply With The Electricity At Work Regulations 1989

All businesses are required under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 to ensure that the portable appliances that their employees are required to use are safe for them to do so. That is a fair and logical requirement. This includes all sorts of thing such as laptops, printers, copiers, and even the office kettle which is used for making the coffee. Basically, it includes anything which has a plug on the end of a cable attached to it. 

If you are the employer, then it is beholden to you to ensure their safety, yet unless you are a qualified electrical engineer it is extremely unlikely that you could do so. Certainly, you can carry out a visual inspection and it might appear that, on the surface, the appliance is perfectly safe. However, the fact is that it could still be extremely unsafe. The only way to be sure is to use the services of a PAT testing company which has qualified engineers who can carry out such testing. PAT stands simply for Portable Appliance Testing.

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Landlords Will Be Required By Law To Have An Inspection Of Their Electrical Wiring

Fixed electrical testing is known by a number of different names but is technically an EICR which stands for Electrical Installation Condition Report. It is also known as fixed wire testing, periodic inspection and testing, and hard wire testing, among others. 

It is the duty of all employers and landlords to ensure that the wiring in their buildings is safe. This is in addition to the requirement on employers and landlords to ensure that portable equipment is safe, which comes under the heading of PAT testing. Fixed electrical testing inspects and checks the condition of the wiring in the building together with any non-portable appliances such as a heated towel rail, wired-in electric cooker, hard-wired smoke alarms, and more. 

Perhaps somewhat strangely, there is no requirement on an employer to undertake fixed electrical testing per se, but simply to ensure that the wiring is safe. However, without having it tested by a qualified engineer who will produce what is known as an EICR – Electrical Installation Condition Report – there is no real way of knowing whether it is safe or not. 

The fact is that electrical wiring does deteriorate over time, depending on the amount of use and other factors, and eventually it will need replacement. 

Furthermore, there is a new onus on landlords to ensure that the electrical wiring in their properties is safe. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 places a continuous duty on landlords in England to maintain their property to the electrical safety standards and to have evidence of this. In turn, that means that any new tenancy created or renewed after July 1st this year requires an EICR provided by a qualified expert. If a landlord has a pre-existing tenancy, an EICR will need to be provided before April 1st next year (2021). However, if you rent a property on a long lease of seven years or more, or you have a lodger, you are not required to have an EICR.

In addition, if the local authority requires a copy of an EICR, it must be provided within seven days, failing which the landlord could suffer penalties.

New Regulations Are Coming into Force Regarding Electrical Wiring In Tenanted Properties

Every business owner or operator is required under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 to ensure that not only all the electrical appliances and pieces of equipment that staff have to use are safe, but the actual wiring in the building is as well. Testing the equipment is known as PAT testing (Portable Appliance Testing), while testing the wiring and other fixed appliances, such as a heated towel rail, hard-wired smoke alarms, or an electric cooker, come under the heading of EICR – an Electrical Installation Condition Report - which is also known as Fixed Wire Testing. A qualified engineer will undertake fixed wire testing, and after thorough testing if everything is in order, will issue fixed wire testing certificates.

New regulations come into force on July 1st this year which will now require landlords to maintain electrical safety in their properties and, if required, to be able to show evidence of this. That means that any rented property must meet the requirements of the 18th edition of the Wiring Regulations and that landlords need to have fixed wire testing certificates from a qualified engineer in order to prove it. 

There is a problem here, in that this does not allow for a qualified engineer to confirm that a property is safe if they do not meet these standards. This is because, although a landlord may have taken every care to ensure the safety of tenants and have an EICR to prove it, the property may still not meet the latest requirements for the simple reason that they did not exist at the time, as the 18th edition is a very recent publication. This could mean substantial alterations to the property.

According to the Residential Landlords Association, the new regulations are aimed at the 22% of landlords who fail to have the electrical installations of their property inspected. The advice of the RLA to landlords who do have an EICR is to wait for further guidance before undertaking any expensive, and possibly unnecessary, alterations to their property. No doubt, further information will be available in due course.