Test and Tag in Perth, By a Sparky Who Can Fix It Too

A licensed electrician can, and so can a person who is not an electrician but has completed the relevant competency training, which is why most test-and-tag rounds in Perth are run by testing-only operators. The difference is not who is allowed to press the button on the tester. It is what happens next. A testing-only operator who finds a damaged plug fails the item, tags it out and leaves it for somebody else. JEC is a licensed WA electrical contractor (EC9674), so the same visit that finds the fault can fix it.

It depends on the environment the equipment lives in, not on the equipment itself. AS/NZS 3760 sets different in-service testing intervals for different workplace types, so gear on a construction site is tested far more often than the same gear in an office. Glen looks at how your equipment is actually used, sets the interval that matches, and books the next round before he leaves so the schedule does not lapse.

AS/NZS 3760 is the Australian and New Zealand standard for the in-service safety inspection and testing of electrical equipment. It covers what gets inspected visually, what gets measured with an instrument, how the result is recorded, and how often the whole thing is repeated for a given type of workplace. When somebody says an item has been tested and tagged, this is the standard they are working to.

Electrical equipment used at a workplace has to be safe, and testing and tagging is the ordinary way a business shows it has met that duty and can prove when it last checked. Whether it is strictly compulsory for your site depends on the work being done and on what your own lease, insurer or head contractor requires, and plenty of businesses are pushed into it by a contract rather than by a regulator. Glen will tell you plainly what your site actually needs rather than testing everything for the sake of it.

You can if you hold the relevant competency and have a calibrated tester, and some larger sites do run it in-house for that reason. Most small businesses find that the tester, the calibration, the training and the record-keeping cost more than having it done, particularly at office and retail intervals where a round comes up once a year rather than every few months.

It comes down to how many items are on the register, how spread out they are, and how much fails. A hundred items in one office is a very different visit to thirty items across four tenancies. Glen counts what is actually there, gives you one fixed price before the round starts, and quotes any repairs separately so you decide what gets fixed rather than finding it on the invoice.

It is tagged out so nobody puts it back into service by accident, and you are told what is wrong with it. Then, because JEC is a licensed electrical contractor, you have a choice most testing rounds do not give you: a damaged plug, a cracked socket or a failed lead can be repaired or replaced on the same visit at a price agreed first, instead of going on a list for another trade to come back for.

Yes. Common-property equipment, meter-room gear, shared laundry appliances and anything a strata company or an owner supplies with a tenancy all sit inside the same testing round. Work is quoted per work order, invoices carry your job numbers, and the records come back with the invoice. Strata is covered on the strata electrician page and rent rolls on the electrician for property managers page.

Every item carries a durable tag showing when it was tested and when it is next due, and you get a record of what was tested and what the result was, so the answer to "when was this last looked at" is a document rather than a recollection. That is what an insurer, an auditor or an incoming tenant asks for.

Quoted, scheduled work goes Perth-wide, with travel priced into the quote. Regular testing rounds work best across Joondalup and the northern corridor, which is where JEC is based and where a recurring schedule is easiest to keep. All work is during business hours, Monday to Friday, 7am to 5pm.