Electrical testing and inspection

What an EICR covers and what it does not

An EICR is not a pass or fail sticker, it is a condition report. An engineer inspects what can be seen, then tests the circuits for earth continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance and RCD operation. The output is a schedule of what was found, circuit by circuit, an overall verdict of satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and a list of anything needing attention. It describes the installation as it stood on the day it was tested, which is the point of the exercise.

Some of it has to be intrusive. Accessories come off, the board is opened and a sample of connections is checked, because loose terminations and damaged cable do not announce themselves from the outside. In an occupied property the power goes off circuit by circuit, so it helps to tell us in advance about a freezer, a server, a tenant working from home or anything medical that cannot lose supply.

What the report does not cover is the equipment that plugs in. Portable appliance testing is a separate exercise answering a different duty, under different legislation, and the two get confused constantly. It is worth establishing which one an insurer, a licensing officer or a client is actually asking for before anything gets booked, because paying for the wrong one satisfies nobody.

Reading C1, C2, C3 and FI codes

Four codes do the work. C1 means danger is present, there is a risk of injury now, and it gets made safe before the engineer leaves the property. C2 means potentially dangerous, so no immediate risk but it needs putting right. C3 is improvement recommended, which is advice rather than a defect and does not make a report unsatisfactory by itself. FI means further investigation, because something could not be resolved during the inspection.

Only C1, C2 and FI make a report unsatisfactory. That distinction matters, because a report full of C3 items reads alarmingly to anybody who has not seen one before while actually saying the installation is safe. We go through the findings with you and separate what you are obliged to put right from what is genuinely optional. Remedial work is quoted separately, so an inspection stays an inspection and does not turn into a sales visit.

Landlord EICR duties and testing frequency

In England, privately rented homes must have the fixed installation inspected at least every five years, and the landlord has to supply a copy of the report to the tenants and to the local authority on request. If it comes back unsatisfactory, the remedial work has to be done within twenty eight days, or sooner where the report says so, with written confirmation afterwards. The penalties for ignoring that sit with the landlord and not the tenant.

Other buildings follow their own cycle. Commercial premises are commonly inspected every five years and industrial sites every three, though in truth the interval depends on the type of installation and how hard it is worked, and an insurer or a licence condition can shorten it. We are NICEIC approved and carry out EICRs across Lincolnshire for landlords, agents and businesses, and we will tell you which interval genuinely applies to your building.