Calibration and Testing Plan

Revised: 28 July 2015 (removed caibrations for items no longer used)

Date reminders are set using Outlook. Outlook also maintains a record of uncompleted calibrations, as well as recently completed calibrations, and autoarchives records of completed calibrations over 18 months old.

Written records are not kept where calibration is conducted before each use.

Equipment Interval
Horiba U-10 Water Checker
One-point auto-calibration before use, 2-point check 6-monthly. 2-point calibration of new probes on initial use and when 2-point check indicates this is required
Hanna Instruments EC Meter
Check before use with conductivity solutions.
Hanna Instruments pH Meter
Check before use with pH solutions.
AND Analytical Balances
Calibrate before use each day with calibrated standard masses.
Small hand pH/EC meters
Prior to each use
3kg Scales
Check before use with standard masses
Waste Audit Scales
Check before use with standard masses
Computer backup
Monthly, Outlook is closed, which causes the .pst file to be backed up on the office computer. Now that all other documents and downloaded program files are held in the Dropbox folders on the computer, it is not necessary to backup these directories - Dropbox has them backed up in the Cloud and also maintains earlier versions.
Computer maintenance
Scandisk, defragmentation etc are set to automatic
Vega spectrophotometer
The Vega has an inbuilt start-up check, plus it has an inbuilt AQA1 (photometer) certification that requires regular use of Photocheck standards, and inbuilt AQA2 (method) certification that requires regular use of standards (Combicheck) for each method. The machine will display a reminder when these are required.
Pipettes Annually checked for accuracy
Standard masses Send to NGBrown's for calibration tri-annually
Laboratory glass thermometers The 50 degree thermometers are checked annually against a slush/ice bath at sea-level and any required offset recorded indelibly on the thermometer. Any thermometers that extend to 100 degrees may be checked against boiling water at sea-level as well. Thermometers with more than an appropriate offset shall be retired from use.
IDEXX Quantitray sealer Check the seal on a standard tray using coloured water, annually
Oxitop BOD system Check the system calibration using calbration tablets every three years
Smoke alarm in laboratory Replace in 2023 when its sensor expires
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