EICR 3 Bed Detached In Half Hour

[topquark]

Essentially yes this is true. There are stipulations along with this, for example I only allow 20 minutes to locate the circuit in question, longer than 20 mins is not tested and requires further investigation (again at clients cost on a day rate).

I don't really do domestic testing, comparable would be the leisure industry that I do, a majority of testing is industrial and commercial.

TBH i don't know of anybody that inspects 100% of accessories visually, that would take masses of time. Do others on here inspect 100% visually?

I think that's one of the main differences then IE Domestic/small commercial versus larger commercial/industrial. The latter most certainly will have their own maintenance schedules as well. The T&I will also be done more frequently in the latter cases and the sampled items can change with each iteration of the test. With Dometic the recommendation is 10 years from install (or at change of ownership). After that down to the recommendation of the tester.

Would I be correct in guessing that the leisure industry has it's own regulations (a bit like pubs where it's under control of the local authority)?

 

[Richard Burns]

100% external visual inspection of all accessible equipment.
The internals you may well get as you are doing the testing.

 

[RISElectrical]

If a property had 10 rooms, and they were on 1 circuit that would be 20 points assuming 1 light and 1 switch per room. so there for 1 switch and 1 light fitting would be removed and inspected.

However most of the time I would assume that over 10 rooms you would either have more than 1 circuit and/or more than 1 fitting per room.

If 10 rooms had 2 fittings per room and 1 switch that would be 30 accessories and so 3 would be visually inspected.

As said above if anything shoddy etc were to be found then the sampling would increase.

THAT BEING SAID in a domestic situation I would maybe do more than the 10% anyway as on a radial with 2 sockets on it, you would check a minimum of 1 socket, therefore thats 50%.

IT IS 10% visual per circuit with a minimum of 1 accessory so will in most cases be more than 10%

IT IS NOT 10% of the installation, you couldnt inspect all sockets and no lights etc.

 

[RISElectrical]

I think that's one of the main differences then IE Domestic/small commercial versus larger commercial/industrial. The latter most certainly will have their own maintenance schedules as well. The T&I will also be done more frequently in the latter cases and the sampled items can change with each iteration of the test. With Dometic the recommendation is 10 years from install (or at change of ownership). After that down to the recommendation of the tester.

What I be correct in guessing that the leisure industry has it's own regulations (a bit like pubs where it's under control of the local authority)?

Generally yes, licencing laws etc state that certain circuits need to be inspected annually for purpose of the licence and then either 3/5 years.

- - - Updated - - -

100% external visual inspection of all accessible equipment.
The internals you may well get as you are doing the testing.

Agree with the external inspection... I was only saying to sample the internal

 

[RISElectrical]

Whenever I have done domestic inspection I usually just throw a day rate of around £180 at it as after its done then there isn't usually a job to follow it on so I am also aware that in 6 hours (2 for paperwork) it would be fair to inspect a lot more visually than 10%

 

[johnboy6083]

I've just finished an EICR on a large kids playbarn Wacky Warehouse type establishment. It had 2 TPN DB's and a total of 30 circuits. It took me and a mate (not technical) 32 hours. That's doing it 3 hours a night after hours. Almost every socket was an RCD socket and 90% of the FCU's were too. As such I had to remove every one and chock block the lives so I could IR the circuit. Over the job I did a min of 80% sampling. A good job I did too, as I found lots of dodgy connections ect. I couldn't test 4 ccts as was agreed with the customer. High bay lights .

 

[SirKit Breaker]

I know there are guidelines about sampling for periodics. At the end of the day we can all argue the ---- about the pro's and con's of what we do, should do and so on. But it all boils down to common sense once again. I would think that most of us like myself are competent inspectors and testers, and then there are some people who are new to it, and some with a good bit of experience, and those others who are somewhere in between.

When i did periodics i always got a gut feeling for the general installation condition within about 15 minutes, by having a good look round for evidence of additions, damage, and a look in the CU, also i would take into consideration the type of usage the installation has been subjected to. I would then base my plan of action upon what i found. If the CU was like a birds nest, and cables were installed top, bottom, sideways, and it was overcrowded, then i put on my "DIY charlie has had a go head on" and be a lot more in depth than an install which has a 16th edition CU all marked up, neatly installed, and just the odd addition such as a FCU for a boiler, accessories in good condition and so on. My initial judgement wasn't always right, but i got it right a lot more than i got it wrong. I didnt worry about "Connectors correctly identified" so unless i needed to, i left switches well alone. If someone is going to go into the back of a switch, and doesn't understand what he is looking at, identified or not, then he shouldn't be in there in the first place. When all said and done, working on electrical installations is a specialised field, if you don't know what you are doing, then you shouldn't be in there, it should be left to the likes of us and those who are training in this field. My only consideration was "IS IT SAFE", if i can answer yes, then all well and good. My opinion is that there is a significant difference between a safe installation, and a compliant installation.

Discuss

Cheers..............Howard

 

[Guest55]

" My opinion is that there is a big difference between a safe installation and a compliant installation , discuss "

Well to a certain extent one follows the other , but if you feel different then how would you distinguish between the 2 ?

 

[Paul.M]

"3 bed house in 30 mins?" Imho not possible to do a proper job in that timescale but a lot of sub contractor council sparks do it every day of the week???

I'm doing an EICR on a small 3 bed house on Saturday with Glennsparks (old member) and I/we will put it to the test so to say. I've told the customer, a neighbour of mine that it will take min of two hours but we are going to fix any small things like cracked skts & switches there and then.

Two people, two hours is reasonable for a good inspection (minus cups of tea and coffee lol) anything less is visual tick box test which isn't worth anything, may as well write it on toilet paper.

 

[Guest55]

Say hello to glennsparks for us , was sad to see him banned , i take it permantly ?

 

[somersetsparks]

Very wel, put mr. sir kit breaker! It does irritate me when people say 'you haven't done it properly because you only spent an hour' etc. I allow 3 hours for a 3 bed house, if I don't finish, I don't finish, I won't fudge results but nearly always I'm not far off target. Like you say you get a feel for it pretty quickly. I have probably tested 1000+ properties, many in the same streets etc. and you can easily weed out the iffy ones for an extra thourough inspection. These days a 'normal fault list' for me seems to be:

No Rcd protection/ supplementary bonding in bathroom C2 - normally rectified by chucking a bit of 4mm round.
No RCD protection on sockets likely to be used outside C2 normally rectified by putting RCD sockets by outside doors.
30A BS3036 on 2.5/1.0 ring circuit C2 - normally rectified by installing a plug in MCB
Bathroom light not suitable for enviroment / installed inside zones C2 - usually Fit bulkhead
Water / gas bond 6mm2 - C3 unless showing signs of heat damage.

Most houses can be bought up to a minimum spec with a couple hours work, no fancy new boards and all that, just a basic 'satisfactory'

The amount of PIR's that I have seen failing, C1 for Wooden back wylex board, earth continuity on ring mains, etc. is shocking and makes everyone in our trade look bad im my opinion,
I even saw a PIR where a code 2 was given to trunking lid missing even though the trunking was just mt2 with 2.5 twins in it!

 

[Sparky Ninja]

In a few years time we'll be doing periodics online. Just take some pictures of your board and the sockets you use, and I'll do the rest sitting here on my arse.

No worries


View attachment 13318

 

[Guest55]

In a few years time we'll be doing periodics online. Just take some pictures of your board and the sockets you use, and I'll do the rest sitting here on my arse.

No worries


View attachment 13318

* runs off to register the "sham inspections.com" domain name.
:-D

 

[Farmelectrics]

Ris do you pick a lot of testing work up because it's hard to get as I no by charging maybe £18 per circuit because there's company out there doing it for peanuts

 

[topquark]

IIRC "IQ Electrical" posted a link to some kit a year or so ago that will be the "future of testing electrical installations" eventually. I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: I couldn't find it.