EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report)

Lets talk Electrical installation condition reports - This may be a long read, but trust me when i say, its an important one!

Have you had a letter from Harlow Council requesting a satisfactory EICR - Electrical installation condition report? Do not struggle to Find A Reliable And Honest Electrician In Harlow?

Call Mitch Now

I can not express enough how important it is to have your electrical installation in your home or workplace regularly tested and inspected. And by regularly I don't mean every week, month or year. I mean at regular intervals that are pre planned. Something like every 5 years.

We use our electrical installations every day, constantly, and like everything in life, your electrical installation will degrade and deteriorate with use. FACT.

We service and MOT our cars every year. We service our boilers every year. Why are we still arguing the toss with clients that they need to have their electrical installation tested before any works can commence. THIS IS YOUR SAFETY, NOT MINE. FACT.

Recently there has been a change in the rental sector. The new law stipulates that any privately rented property must have a satisfactory electrical installation condition report issued for the property to continually be rented, or if there is currently no tenant in place, a report must first be issued before someone can move in.

The change in these laws go to some length to improve electrical standards across the country. No longer will so called slum landlords be able to buy a fixer-upper and put a tenant in place without first fixing-it-up. These new laws have been introduced after recent catastrophes such as the Grenfell fire where 72 poor souls lost their lives due to an electrical fire that started in a kitchen, and more recently the death of a young child in a pub garden because a rogue trader and an equally awful pub landlord decided to throw in some dodgy electrical outside lights.

This change in law has indeed generated a lot of new work leads for genuine and trustworthy electricians like myself, however, it has also opened a barrier for rogue traders and the less savoury types to charge money for false reports.

At full Circuit Solutions it is my name on your report and I hold my standards high. I will not put my name to a report that I do not genuinely believe is satisfactory, and likewise I would never sign a report as unsatisfactory unless I can genuinely prove my findings.

As a general rule of thumb, It takes around 30 minutes PER CIRCUIT to inspect enough points and record test results. Guidance set out in BS7671 guidance note 3 inspecting and testing states that 'between 10% and 100%' for circuit accessories and 'ideally 100% but not less than 25%' for distribution boards and consumer units, must be dismantled for inspections . There is more than just those two items to check too. See the attached chart pulled directly from GN3 I&T. I regularly receive calls from disgruntled home owners and landlords questioning the integrity of a report issued by other contractors and when pressed they tell me that the report cost £75 and the inspector was there for less than an hour. LESS THAN AN HOUR! In the industry, we call it a drive by EICR. There's often fake test results, sometimes even no test results at all. Half the form isn't filled out, missing pages, incorrect and contradicting statements and the list goes on! And then worse still is that the fake report will be unsatisfactory and the price for the remedial works will be sky high. And the trouble is that the joe public don't know and better, so they say ok lets just get it done and the rogue trader will throw the cheapest consumer unit they can get their hands on in, their work is often substandard and usually left just a dangerous as they found it, however this time you'll get your satisfactory certificate until the next time it needs to be tested and the cycle repeats!