No item of kit is lent more freely or returned less reliably than an extension lead. A reel gets handed to another trade “for an hour”, uncoiled across a slab, buried under boards, and is still energising someone else’s radio three weeks after your crew left. Because each one is cheap, nobody chases them - and because nobody chases them, a firm can quietly re-buy its entire stock of leads every couple of years. Add the compliance angle - leads are portable electrical equipment with test dates to honour - and they earn a proper register more than their price tag suggests.
What you will learn
- Why leads and reels never come back
- Test dates belong in the register
- The reel record
- Labelling kit that gets dragged through mud
- Assign to vans and sites, not memory
- Tools that make this easier
- FAQ
Why leads and reels never come back
The loss pattern for cable is distinctive:
- They are lent across trades. Power is the one thing every trade on a site needs, so your reels serve everyone - and end-of-job pack-up sorts kit by trade, not by owner.
- They disappear into the work. A lead run under boards or through a riser becomes part of the building until handover, by which point the crew that ran it is two jobs away.
- They are below the caring threshold. Nobody reports a missing lead the way they report a missing breaker. The losses surface only as a repeat line on supplier invoices.
- Identical means invisible. Ten orange reels with no labels cannot be told apart, so a swap with another firm’s stock goes unnoticed by both sides.
The fix follows the diagnosis: identity per reel, and a record of where each one went.
Test dates belong in the register
Leads and reels are usually inside a portable appliance testing (PAT) or equivalent inspection regime, and site kit tends to sit on shorter intervals than office kit because of the abuse it takes. That gives every reel two dates that matter: last tested and next due.
Keeping those dates in the same register as location pays off twice. A site manager or client auditor who challenges a lead gets an answer from a scan instead of a phone call to the office; and the store can pull expiring reels for test in batches, instead of discovering a dead test sticker on the one reel the job needs at 7 am. Visual damage checks belong here too - a crushed reel housing or a nicked sheath is a fail regardless of what the sticker says.
The reel record
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Asset ID | Makes one orange reel distinguishable from the other nine |
| Type: reel, drum or loose lead | Different storage, different failure modes, different test handling |
| Length + current rating | How the next job picks the right reel without uncoiling three wrong ones |
| IP rating | Says which reels may work outdoors and which must not |
| Serial or batch detail | Ties the reel to manufacturer recalls and warranty - see serial numbers |
| Purchase date + price | Reveals the true annual spend on replacing “cheap” leads |
| Last test + next test due | The compliance answer, available at the reel rather than in a filing cabinet |
| Checked out to: site, van or person | The actual answer to “where is it?” |
Labelling kit that gets dragged through mud
Cable is about the worst environment a label can have, so put the label on the part that suffers least:
- Reels and drums: on the drum frame, housing or carry handle - never on the cable, which is dragged, coiled and abraded daily.
- Loose leads: near the plug end, which is handled at connection and disconnection - the two moments anyone looks at the lead.
- Stock: laminated polyester or engraved tags. A QR code sized generously enough to scan through site grime, with the asset ID printed beneath it as the human-readable fallback.
- Colour or sleeve marking in company colours costs pennies and settles the cross-trade “whose reel is this?” argument before it starts.
Tip: when a reel comes back from a job, scan it in before it touches the rack. The thirty seconds at the store door is the entire difference between a register that reflects the rack and one that reflects last month.
Assign to vans and sites, not memory
Leads rarely belong to a person the way a drill does; they belong to a van or a job. Make the register say so:
- Van stock: check the van’s standard leads out to the van itself as a location. A periodic van check then confirms the list against the racking, and a missing lead is noticed in days, not at re-order time.
- Site issue: leads sent to a job are checked out to that site until the job closes. The close-out checklist asks the register what is still out - which is exactly when a lead under the boards is still recoverable.
- Cross-trade loans: fine, but recorded, with a name. The lead that powered another firm’s mixer comes home because someone is listed as having it.
- Pair with the box: leads that live in a site box should appear on that box’s contents list, so the box audit covers them automatically.
Tools that make this easier
Spreadsheets struggle with cable for one blunt reason: the people who move leads never open the spreadsheet. Check-outs happen at a van door at dawn, returns happen at a muddy store door at dusk, and the sheet is updated - optimistically - on Friday, from memory.
AMPthilly moves the record to the reel. Every reel gets a profile with length, rating and test dates in custom fields, plus photos and test paperwork attached; printable QR labels, generated in batches after a CSV import of the existing stock, go on the drum frames; scanning one with any phone camera opens the reel in the browser, where it can be checked out to a site, a van (as a location) or a person, and damage can be reported with a photo on the spot. Checkouts per site and the overdue list make job close-out a lookup. The free plan covers 3 users and 25 assets - enough to run the test-dated kit first and expand from there via pricing.
FAQ
How do you keep track of extension leads on site? Identity per lead, a register with lengths, ratings and test dates, and a check-out to a site, van or person at every handover.
Do extension leads and cable reels need electrical testing? In most workplaces yes, under a PAT or equivalent regime, with harsher use meaning shorter intervals. Keep last and next test dates on each reel’s record.
How should cable reels be labelled? On the drum frame or housing for reels, near the plug end for loose leads - durable stock, never on the cable itself.
Should leads be assigned to a person or a van? To where they live: van stock to the van, job leads to the site, specialist reels to a person. The register should mirror reality.
What should a cable reel register record? ID, type, length, rating, IP rating, serial detail, purchase data, test dates, status, and the current site, van or holder.
The takeaway
Cable walks because it is cheap, shared and identical - so make it labelled, owned and dated. Put test dates and locations in one register, scan reels in and out at the store door, and let job close-out run off the still-out list. Leads will still get lent to every trade on site; they will just start coming home.