Finding an Earth Point on an appliance when doing a Class I test

One difficulty one faces when carrying out a Class I test is where to connect the test lead to. Newcomers to PAT testing can spend time finding a suitable earth point or worse still fail appliances that should pass. This blog advices on suitable earth points on a number of common appliances.

Examples of earth test point

Earth point on fridge

Earth point on sandwich toaster

Earth point on iron

Earth point on electric fan

Earth point on PC

Earth point on microwave oven

Earth point on printer

Earth point on monitor 

Earth point on a 110V transformer

Earth point on a toaster

Earth point on a kettle

Why do we need to connect to an earth test point?

In order to measure the Earth Continuity we need to pass a current through the Earth lead of the appliance and back to the tester. The diagram below shows how this is done for a kettle.

In summary when testing Class I appliances it's vital to measure Earth Continuity. In order to do this the test clip must be connected to a suitable (metal) earth point on the appliance.