Leeds & surrounding areas Domestic, Commercial & Industrial Electrical Installation Condition Reports.
EICR testing also known as electrical installation condition report testing is somewhat overlooked these days, it is key to ensure electrical safety in the home, work place and for landlords renting house out to the public.
Landlords in the UK now have a legal requirement to have a EICR test completed on the houses they rent out, this is now law.
How often does the EICR Test need to be done
- Residential houses not let – 10 years
- Residential houses let out – 5 years
- Commercial offices / shops – 5 years
- Industrial normal – 5 years
- Industrial high risk – 3 years
How do I know if the electrician is registered to do such work ?
The electrician firstly should be qualified to actually test, beleive it or not some electricians dont have a clue how to test, are not with an affiliated governing body such as the NICEIC or Napit, is not vetted and has no idea how to test electrics. Actual dedicated City & Guilds testing qualifications exist for electricians to become electrical testers, These range from City & Guilds 2391 (the hardest one to pass ever) and the City & Guilds 2392, there is possibly more cut down versions but these two were the industry standard. Electricians train to be electricians then do these higher up testing courses to fine tune the testing requirements and then this allows them to be a Qualified Supervisor in a company. Basicly make sure your chosen sparkie is versed in testing and is qualified is what i am getting at here, i am sure you get the jist.
Some Warning signs to look out for
If you get a green or black and white certificate from the electrician this tends to mean the electrician is unregistered, a blue certificate tends to be Napit and a Red certificate is a NICEIC registered electrican, all registered certificates have the electricians governing body name on it and there registration number and address that can be checked with what governing body it says they are registered with so check for this and ask the right questions. Dont get me wrong some electricians may issue black and white or green certificates but they mean nothing unless the electricians credentials are on there and his governing body.
What happens then on the day of the EICR ?
The electrician will attend on the day and perform the electrical inspection of the property, they will conduct a percentage of visual checks on light switches, sockets, fittings, removeing several to inspect for grommitts in rthe back boxes, correct connection of conductors, oversleaving of the wires (switch wires and earth cables) looking for any damage, strain & the condition of the wiring.
This is the easy part of the inspection and any damage or observations get recorded on the EICR certificate, dont forget the EICR is a time consuming process so we generally set out our stall and say we will visually inspect 20% of a rooms actual finished items namely sockets, switches, light fittings per room.
This is because we have alot of testing to do on all the circuits connected in the fuse box, i will list the test we actually do so you can see how much work is onvolved, all these tests generate special test recorded values that we record on the EICR certificate.
The sequence of tests (This is what takes the time to do)
- Continuity of protective conductors, including main and supplementary bonding
- Continuity of ring final circuit conductors
- Insulation resistance testing
- Polarity testing
- Earth fault loop impedance testing
- Prospective fault current testing
- RCD testing
- Phase sequence testing
- Functional testing
Have a look at some of the bad electrical wiring we found on EICR’S
Pictures from left to right show a multitude of all electrical sins from Lead cable, Tough rubber sheath cable TRS, ancient 1960s & 1970s switch gear, poorl made off underfloor boards DIY spider wiring to a burnt out fuse box and poor unfixed poorly terminated 1980s wiring in a lighting junction box we found.
How much is the EICR & How long will it take ?
The million pound question, this all depends on the size of the electrical installation in the home, general rule of thumb the average house is around 6 circuits and one consumer unit, this if done properly is a good half day with the certificate wrote up on site during the test. Bigger houses with more circuits and multiple consumer units, outbuildings, garages etc all add extra time. If you hire a electrician who comes and goes in under an hour and half ask yourself this, has he really tested the installation or is he making up the results…….. All is good until you call on that certificate when needed and you find out the tests were not done and for that reason the circuit burnt the house down and the electrician didnt do the tests and was not registered.
You pay for what you get so anything from £150 upwards excluding vat and remember if its too cheap its usually for a reason.