Thread: Test and Tagging of Electrical Appliances

My wife works in a vet surgury as a dog groomer where she baths, clips,blow dries, cuts nails (pet-icure ) etc and NO this is not an add for her work and we don't really need any more clients - word of mouth is all that is needed for more than enough work.

Anyway, one day this sleeze came into the place and started demanding that he be shown the test tags for the hydobaths, humidicrib thingys for pups or kittens and even the cash registers and other fixed appliances like PCs etc. This tu%d then started to threaten the staff with calling in WorkCover and the issue of fines when they say that there are no tags.

If I had of been there I think I would have taken a baseball bat to him. To make make threats to people for presecution or use their business services to avoid it is the lowest scumbag act imaginable. I think I would still use the bat across his face. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Sorry folks I must put the respectable person face back on.

From one side I agree that tagging should be carried out especially where my wife uses the hydrobath. Hydro's are a notorious problem with RCDs in that you can have a high humidity environment under the bath which will cause the device to continually trip on a neutral earth connection without showing any dangerous conditions being present. This same problem is very evident where pool pump equipment is present - quite often not RCD protected due to this problem.

What they don't tell you is that fixed equipment does not need to be check for up to 5 years, but this would not include the hydro as the environment would be considered hostile with the water. Note here that most equipment is replaced within 5 years in commercial environments. Nor would they tell you that most of the other stuff is on 12 month cycle, no this company or at least their representative will lie & cheat to extract the most out of the poor bast$$ds. Where's my bat I'm getting angry again :mad: :mad: :mad:

Originally Posted by gregoryq

How much do they charge for this "service"?

It is a ridiculous sum, Greg. I think the last time we had it done here we shopped around and got the cheapest possible for about $6.50 per lead:eek:.

I had to take my hat off to the guy who did it though - he was a young bloke (20?) and was a third-year apprentice electrician. For the first year of his apprenticeship he worked for a bloke who would use him to just T&T electrical cords. He was paid very little (as apprentices usually are) and soon got jack of it all. So he quit working for that bloke after twelve months and set up his own business, tagging and testing.
He is allowed to do that as a second year apprentice unsupervised.
He continued his TAFE training to become an electrician and all the while he was making good bucks. This year will be the fourth year of his apprenticeship, and he will be HIRING a full-time electrician so that he can finish his apprenticeship under a qualified tradesman.

A case of an apprentice hiring the master.........

Very unusual and very entrepreneurial of this bloke, but it's a shame society has gone down this track.

A tester can verify that an appliance is safe.

So the tester could legally repair appliances as he can safety tag it.

Why couldn't a tester make his own test gear and simply tag it after he tests his shop made test gear??????????????

Bought some gear for the guys to use on site the other day - straight out of the box so to speak

So I asked the guy behind the counter if he could tag it for me

He walked out the back, stuck the tags on...

and tried to charge me an extra 12 bucks per appliance for the pleasure

I was only spending about a grand...

My other gripe with testing is the effect it is having on the livers of Sparkies - those guys get so much booze from the guys on site it is not funny!

Oh - and when SWMBO had the bub last november - the power cord for my iPod speakers had to be tagged too !!!!

Originally Posted by BrisBen

My other gripe with testing is the effect it is having on the livers of Sparkies - those guys get so much booze from the guys on site it is not funny!

Shaddap!!!

While I might not be doing it at the moment, I may be again one day and I have gotta make sure there are still some perks to the job. Aside from scrap copper and used cable drums...

Maybe should charge $10 a lead and go buy the beer myself?


Felder, great story about the cluey apprentice. If only there were a few more guys when I was at school who had half the brains of him, I wouldn't have spent most of my time explaining everything between naps...

Says I who worked with a guy who took nearly 10 years to pass his A grade. :eek:

MarkW, find a sparky worth his salt and ask about the bath. There may be some little lurk that might allow it to be disconnected from the RCD due to it's nature, but still render it safe.

Kinda like fridges not needing to be connected to the RCD. No fun coming home after a weekend to find a fridge full of rotten food now is it?

Originally Posted by Schtoo

MarkW, find a sparky worth his salt and ask about the bath. There may be some little lurk that might allow it to be disconnected from the RCD due to it's nature, but still render it safe.

Kinda like fridges not needing to be connected to the RCD. No fun coming home after a weekend to find a fridge full of rotten food now is it?

Actually at home I have the fridge and the freezer on two separate independant circuits - house has 3 power circuits all on independant RCDs - just so that if one were to trip without being noticed, I wouldn't lose the entire food supply. Mind you the fridge is on the TV/entertainment circuit and the freezer is on the same circuit as the office and PC equipment - not much chance of a circuit trip going un-noticed

electrical safety is important for everyone, but why pay some idiot to do a job that you can legally do yourself. a 1 day course and you are legally allowed to tag & test any electrical appliance.

- Did the half day course 18 months ago, can not rember much...
- brought the tester thing (cost over 800 bucks)
- brought tags about 50 bucks packet 6 packts needed
- test and tag all our gear to save getting sparky envolved in it.
- i tag over 250 items per month (for site work) plus another 100 or so every 6 months which stay in factory.
- i had to buy a 3ph adaptor they guys wanted over 600 bucks get real for a couple of sockets, had in made up by a sparky.
- Companys that go around door to door should be shot, they are bloody con men.
- have not charged any one for tagging even mates etc it's just a pain writting the tag out.
- maybe i should retire now and just test and tag all day, easy life, no overheads and charge 7.00 ea.

In QLD if you get test and tag certification you can only tag equipment for yourself or the company that is named on your ticket. You are not allowed to tag anything else. That sucks, I did the course hoping that I could make a bit of extra tool money by tagging other peoples gear.

Originally Posted by Gaza

- maybe i should retire now and just test and tag all day, easy life, no overheads and charge 7.00 ea.

do you get bored easily?

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do you get bored easily 


it would stuck, a bit like being a meter reader for the gas or power, there is no chance of me retire any day soon just gearing up my factory with heaps of new gear.

Originally Posted by Felder

It is a ridiculous sum, Greg. I think the last time we had it done here we shopped around and got the cheapest possible for about $6.50 per lead

it depends on how many tag you have but our average rate is $5.50 per tag and it can go as low as $3.50 a tag

DA DUMM.....DA Dumm.....................Dadum dadum dardummm.


Just when you thought it was safe to plug in an appliance.

Where's the test stificate fer yer club Outback??