ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Portable Appliance Testing

Here in the UK, within industry we have to have any electrical equipment within the work enviroment tested to make sure that it is safe to use.

Is the UK the only country that carries out this type of testing or are the other countries who do this.

Is mandatory in Germany for any sort of business as being stipulated by mandatory "accident prevention and insurance association" or however you might call this type of social security in your country.

Portable devices are covered by VDE 0701 with a flexible schedule, the complete fixed installation is to be checked in 4 years schedule.

The smaller the company the less they do it.

It is also mandatory here in NZ.
Tested appliances are required to have a current test tag attached to them before use.
AS/NZ3760 is the standard used for this sort of testing here.

Also in Australia it is mandatory, also covered by AS/NZ 3760 like the Kiwis.

What do they do for the South Pacific islands? Do they have their own standards or do they use the AS/NZS standards for their work?

As far as I know in Austria frequent testing is mandatory too, though I absolutely don't know if this applies to all commercial settings or only certain fields. It's most certainly neglected frequently. The office building I'm sitting in right now (electrical planning office) was built in 1998 and the first check was done 2 weeks ago.

As Wolfgang mentioned in Germany the so-called Berufsgenossenschaft requests the testing. On (especially larger) constructions ites there are also checks I think. This is only confirmed by one story I heard though...
An Italian plumbing company arrived on site with only dangling cords on their tools... not a single plug. They just too matches and stuffed the bare wires into the socket holes... they didn't want to carry around adaptors for their cords working in different countries.

They were forced to get safer tools...