Charity Shop PAT Testing Kits

Ensure Electrical Safety with PAT Testing – Protect Your Customers & Boost Revenue

Charity shops and repair cafés play a vital role in sustainability and community service. Using our Charity Kits to carry out Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) ensures second-hand electrical goods are safe for resale or repair, helping you comply with regulations and protect your customers.

Key Benefits

• Legal Compliance – Meet General Product Safety Regulations 2005 & Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016.
• Customer Safety – Reduce risks of electric shocks and fires.
• Reputation & Trust – Build credibility by guaranteeing safe products.
• Maximize Sales & Repairs – Increase profits by reselling quality-tested items.

Why Charity Shops do PAT Testing?

Charity shops and repair cafés should conduct Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) to ensure the safety of second-hand electrical items before resale or repair. Here’s why it matters:

Legal Compliance: While PAT testing isn’t legally required, charity shops must comply with the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 and the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, which mandate that all electrical items sold must be safe.

Customer Safety: Electrical faults can pose serious risks, including electric shocks and fires. PAT testing helps identify potential hazards before an item reaches a customer.

Reputation & Trust: A shop or café that prioritizes safety builds trust with customers, ensuring they feel confident purchasing or using repaired electrical goods.

Efficiency in Repairs: Repair cafés benefit from PAT testing by verifying that fixed items are safe to use, reducing the risk of faulty repairs.

Considerations

Legal & Safety Compliance: While PAT testing isn’t legally required, charity shops must ensure electrical items meet General Product Safety Regulations 2005 and Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016.

Training & Expertise: Staff or volunteers may need training to conduct PAT testing correctly. There is no formal training requirement to carry out PAT Testing. Only that the person doing it, is competent.

Equipment Costs: Investing in a PAT tester can be beneficial, but costs vary. You need to use a Pass/Fail PAT Tester. You need to factor in the purchase price, and the cost of annual calibration. Our Charity kits designed to contain everything your shop need to get PAT Testing.

Reputation & Trust: Equipment you sell or repair, must be safe to use. The PAT Testing sequence as well as simple checks for product recalls means that you can easily make money or stop items going to refill/recycling by following the PAT Testing procedures.

How do a charity shop or repair café start PAT Testing?

Do the free online PAT Testing course. www.onlinepattestingcourse.co.uk. The course will show you what is involved in PAT Testing.

Identify a suitable PAT Tester: We recommend the PB500VX. It’s competitively priced and means you will be able test all types of equipment. It is also the machine featured in the free online course. The machine is easy to use and manufactured in the UK with high reliability and comes with a 2-year warranty extendible to 10 years with annual calibration at Parker Bell. It is important that.

Source funding: For a charity shop, you should be able to do a simple business plan, based on available used electrical items in good condition that you could resell, if you checked them for safety. Many charity shops are PAT Testing now as it is a crucial revenue stream. For repair cafes the funding is trickier. It is always worth contacting your local councils recycling departments or whoever deals with green initiatives. We have worked with various councils that will happily buy the PAT Tester, so that the only cost factor is the ongoing annual calibration cost which is less than £100 per year.

Train volunteers: The HSE (Health & Safety Executive) says any competent person can PAT Test. There is no formal training required but it is essential that you know what to do and how to do it. All this information is available the free on PAT Testing fundamentals course, available here www.onlinepattestingcourse.co.uk. The course starts with the legal requirements and takes you through exactly how to carry out a visual inspection and PAT Test, then record keeping. It takes 25 mins approximately and the information and skills used for PAT Testing should be known by all adults, to reduce the risk of electrical accidents and fires in the home, making it beneficial for the volunteers own knowledge as well as slowing them to carry out inspections. At the end of the course, if you pass, it is possible to purchase a certificate showing your success. The certificate costs £25 +VAT. If you need multiple certificates, you can benefit from buying them in bundles which reduces the cost per certificate. We will also keep a record of your success. You do not have to buy a certificate.

Risk Assessment: Next is your risk assessment – you need to understand from all aspects of your Charity / Repair Café what risks are involved and how to mitigate them. Typically, this is straightforward, and it will help you ensure that your procedures are comprehensive thus mitigating your risk.

Procedures: How to PAT Test is documented in the PAT Testing fundamentals course. All our instructional videos are also online on YouTube @ParkerBellCoUk-PAT.

Manufacturer Recalls: You must check that the equipment you want to sell has not been recalled by the manufacturer. This is easily done via the Governments Electrical Safety First website here:  https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/product-recalls/