EICR stands for Electrical Installation Condition Report, which is a report given by an Electrician after carrying out an inspection of your electrical installation.
These can be requested by insurance companies or anyone with a vested interest in your property or the safety of it and are commonplace in house purchases
What is an EICR Used For?
An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) identifies the condition of your electrical installation it identifies any current defects or conditions and helps identify possible future problems or issues you may wish to monitor more closely but don’t current effect the safety of your installation.
How is an EICR Carried Out
These are more in-depth than a visual inspection as we cannot see what’s happening behind walls or any mystery cables that may be lurking around. They carried out by testing all the circuits in the property and will involve turning the electrics off at the main supply.
The whole process will take 3-4 hrs depending on the complexity and size f the installation.
What Will a EICR Report Tell Me?
It will give you a whole summary of your electrical installation and confirm it complies with the current regulations (BS7671).
It will also allow you to see any recommendations and anything that doesn’t meet the current regulations, this doesn’t necessarily mean you need upgrade your installation but to make you aware should you think of carrying out any work in the future where this may need to be taken into consideration.
Any EICR coding that will need to be acted on would fall into Codes C1 & C2 which are classfied as follows:
Code C1 – This code indicates that danger exists, requiring
immediate remedial action. The persons using the
installation are at immediate risk.
Code C2 – This code indicates that, whilst an observed deficiency is
not considered to be dangerous at the time of the
inspection, it could become a real and immediate
danger if a fault or other foreseeable event was to occur
in the installation or connected equipment.
Either of these codes as you see from the description will be highly recommended that the required attention is rectified as soon as possible
C3 on the other hand would indicate:
Code C3 – This code indicates that, whilst an observed deficiency is
not considered to be a source of immediate or potential
danger improvement would contribute to a significant
enhancement of the safety of the electrical installation
It is recommended that EICR Reports are carried out every 10 years or as indicated in the report dependent on the deviations from the regulations that have been noted.
Does this affect Rental Properties
There has been a recent change to the rental sector and now there are now a new set of regulations (electrical safety standards in the private rented sector) which are in force which require landlords to have their properties tested every 5 years and that any remedial work identified must be carried out within 28 days.
If you would like further advice on EICR reports please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we appreciate it can seem like a minefield but we are here to help.
