Festive Trade Is Coming: PAT Testing for Pubs and Hotels

From late November your kitchen runs flat out, your function room is booked most nights, and every socket in the building has something in it. If something electrical is going to fail, that's when it will, and that's the worst possible moment for it. Which is why the last week of October is the right time to be reading this.

Why hospitality equipment fails in December

Three things happen at once. The load goes up, with equipment running longer and harder than at any other point in the year. The extras come out: the extra fridge from the cellar, the urn, the heaters for the smoking area, the outdoor lighting, the decorations. And the staff numbers change, with seasonal people plugging things in where they can rather than where they should.

The equipment that fails is rarely the expensive kitchen machinery, which is usually serviced. It's the seasonal stuff that spent eleven months in a cellar, and the leads and adaptors that get pressed into service to make everything fit.

The specific items worth attention

The seasonal equipment first: electric patio heaters, decorative and outdoor lighting, the spare fridge or freezer, the urn, portable heaters for the function room. None of it was on your register in August because none of it was in use.

Then the year-round items that take the most punishment. Kitchen equipment with leads near heat. Cellar equipment in damp conditions. The dishwasher and glasswasher. Anything on a trolley. And the extension leads, which multiply in December and end up under carpets, across doorways and daisy-chained behind the bar.

The outdoor category deserves its own line. Anything running outside in a Welsh winter is exposed to weather it may not be rated for, and outdoor equipment on indoor leads is a combination we find every year.

Why it matters beyond safety

Two commercial reasons. First, your electrical records are the sort of thing licensing officers, insurers and, if you host events, corporate clients may ask to see. Second, and more immediately, an equipment failure on the second Saturday of December doesn't just cost you the repair, it costs you the covers.

If you serve food, the condition and cleanliness of food equipment and the premises can affect your food hygiene rating. PAT records are not a separate scored FHRS item, and the absence of a PAT certificate does not by itself determine the rating.

An admission about timing

We'd rather test you in October than December, and not only for your benefit. Testing a pub in full festive service is slow, disruptive and worse work for everyone. Right now you have quiet mornings, the seasonal kit is coming out anyway, and there's time to replace anything that fails before it matters.

The other half of it costs you nothing: brief your seasonal staff. New people plug things in wherever there's a socket, and a two-minute word about not daisy-chaining leads and reporting damaged cables will prevent more than any test will.

Our food and hospitality page covers how we work with trade premises, and our PAT testing page has the detail on visits.

Get in touch

Want it done while you've still got quiet mornings? Get in touch and we'll book you in before the rush.