PAT Testing
Portable appliance testing for offices, landlords, HMOs, schools and workshops across Manchester, Tameside and Stockport. Every item inspected, tested and recorded, with a full asset register you can hand straight to a licensing officer or an insurer.
Why Choose Us?
- Priced on the number of items, not a flat fee
- Full asset register, not just labels
- Out of hours available for offices
- Same visit as your EICR if you want both
- Landlord and HMO documentation sorted
The honest position on whether you need it
A lot of what gets said about PAT testing is wrong, and most of it is wrong in the direction of selling you more testing than you need. There is no law that names PAT testing, no legal duty to test every twelve months, and no requirement to label anything. The actual duty sits in the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, which say electrical equipment must be maintained so that it does not cause danger. That is it.
What that means in practice is that the right interval depends on the equipment and the environment it lives in. A monitor that sits on a desk and never moves is not the same risk as an extension lead dragged round a workshop, and treating them the same is how people end up paying for testing that achieves nothing.
Where a fixed frequency does apply, it almost always comes from somewhere other than the law: an insurance policy, or a council licence condition.
Where it becomes a real obligation: council licences
This is the part that catches landlords out, because it varies by council rather than being national. If your property needs a licence, appliance testing may well be written into the licence conditions — and a condition has a date attached in a way that the general legal duty does not.
Across the areas we cover, the requirements genuinely differ. Manchester’s selective licence conditions require an original PAT certificate to be produced on demand where you supply appliances. Stockport asks for a PAT certificate alongside the EICR with an HMO licence application, and charges for an incomplete application. Trafford’s HMO standards specify annual testing. Tameside and Stockport run no selective licensing at all, so for most private landlords there the general duty is all that applies.
Council positions checked August 2026. Licensing designations change and conditions get updated, so confirm your own address and licence type with the council rather than relying on this page.
What we actually do on the day
Every item gets a visual inspection first, which is where most genuine faults are found — damaged leads, cracked plugs, the wrong fuse, strain relief pulled out. Then the electrical tests appropriate to that class of equipment, and the result recorded against the item.
You get an asset register listing everything tested and its result. That is the document that matters, and it is what people are usually missing when they arrive having previously paid someone who put stickers on things and left. If an item fails, we tell you what failed and why, and whether it is worth repairing or replacing.
Who asks us for it
Landlords and HMOs
Often a licence conditionWhere a council licence requires appliance testing, it applies to what you supply — the cooker, the fridge, the washing machine — not to the tenant’s own things.
Offices and workplaces
Duty of careThe employer duty under the Electricity at Work Regulations applies to equipment provided for use at work, including the kettle and everything under the desks.
Schools and community buildings
Insurer-drivenUsually asked for by the insurer rather than by law, and typically covering a large, mixed inventory that nobody has a current list of.
Workshops and trade units
Higher risk, shorter intervalsTools, leads and transformers in a working environment take more punishment, so they justify testing far more often than an office does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Areas We Cover
We provide pat testing across Denton, Tameside, Stockport and the wider Greater Manchester area — find your local team below.