Failed EICR Query

[stephanjs]

Someone who is doing testing may not have any spare parts to fit a blank plate in. so to walk away and leave it in a potentially dangerous condition without notifying the user is risky. Exposure to live parts is always C1. Depending on where you are, the cost of replacing a 10 way CCU can vary from £400 to £1000. I was surprised to see someone charged £250 per hour to investigate a fault in a property in Richmond.

 

[danieluk84]

Thanks again all

So she spoke to another electrician, yet another opinion. Latest disagrees with observation 3 as a c3, he believes it to be a c2. This has been a real eye opener.

From an outsiders perspective, the EICR is a bit of a mess. One electrician can do the remedial work give you the cert. You could then order a second/third EICR report to be carried out which would have a high chance of failing.
On one hand its open to abuse by incentivising creating more work than necessary. and on the other hand is potentially unsafe. Customers who obtain multiple quotes are likely to pick cheapest electrician who does the least amount of work, which is probably the least safe option.

The electrician doing the EICR should be prohibited from carrying out the subsequent remedial work imo. Or The test carried out by an independent body.

For the same reason i refuse to use a garage to perform my MOT and use a council test centre.

 

[Julie.]

Thanks again all

So she spoke to another electrician, yet another opinion. Latest disagrees with observation 3 as a c3, he believes it to be a c2. This has been a real eye opener.

From an outsiders perspective, the EICR is a bit of a mess. One electrician can do the remedial work give you the cert. You could then order a second/third EICR report to be carried out which would have a high chance of failing.
On one hand its open to abuse by incentivising creating more work than necessary. and on the other hand is potentially unsafe. Customers who obtain multiple quotes are likely to pick cheapest electrician who does the least amount of work, which is probably the least safe option.

The electrician doing the EICR should be prohibited from carrying out the subsequent remedial work imo. Or The test carried out by an independent body.

For the same reason i refuse to use a garage to perform my MOT and use a council test centre.

From an inside perspective, I completely agree with you!

I may not have a popular opinion in this, but I use the mot analogy myself. I belive it should be regulated in the same way, only people specifically trained should be doing it, managed by an approved government body (not schemes) where continuous exchange of standards are made - just like the mot.

There will always be some room for opinion in an assessment - just like a mot, but in no where near as wide a range as occurs at the moment!

 

[Electrics]

From an inside perspective, I completely agree with you!

I may not have a popular opinion in this, but I use the mot analogy myself. I belive it should be regulated in the same way, only people specifically trained should be doing it, managed by an approved government body (not schemes) where continuous exchange of standards are made - just like the mot.

There will always be some room for opinion in an assessment - just like a mot, but in no where near as wide a range as occurs at the moment!

Imo hashgraph public distributed ledgers are going to change all this.

It's possible to have your tester hooked up to an immutable public ledger where people cannot do things like pretend they've done the readings or fiddle the numbers.

I'm sure there's a way to work visual inspection stuff onto there too since immutable and verified photosgraphs are part of the ledgers upcoming use cases.

The hurdle would be getting the government to agree to an overriding authority that definitely designates certain things into a category of urgency.

For example, an exposed bus bar due to lack of a blank plate being inserted = C2. Picture is taken and uploaded to ledger, and via tokenised smart contract the customer agrees to have it remedied on the spot (electrician simply puts a blank plate in).

All immutable, admittable as evidence in a court and everyone is held to account and protected.

There's lots more to it than this but this is the gist and it's coming everywhere, to every product you can think of.

Avery Dennison have actually begun to tokenise and trace products based on their own 'fingerprint' - so you can trace say a breaker back to its origin based on microscopic pictures of the breaker. If you zoom in on material far enough it has its own unique structure like a fingerprint and there are companies out there right now doing it to stop counterfeit items etc. Atma.io are doing it and one of their clients is Adidas.

It's all run on a ledger called Hedera Hashgraph and it's going to be prevalent everywhere within 5-10 years. I can see huge use cases for the electrical industry. Just a shame i don't have the money or technical know-how to implement it in a product. Whoever does will sell it to Megger and Kewtech and be rich.

 

[littlespark]

All that would just add to the cost of an EICR and ongoing training for us lot.
The government would have to demand an EICR on every property, at a regular interval or people just won’t get it done. (I do very few EICRs that aren’t rentals)

Much more in an EICR than an MOT.

 

[Electrics]

All that would just add to the cost of an EICR and ongoing training for us lot.
The government would have to demand an EICR on every property, at a regular interval or people just won’t get it done. (I do very few EICRs that aren’t rentals)

Much more in an EICR than an MOT.

There's a way to do it the way i said it by simply integrating an app into eg a multi function tester and to get pictures taken before the work commences, signed off to be verified by the customer, all via app.

The sticking point would be getting the government involved to lay down standards, removing most of the subjective interpretation. So eg they could say any possibility of putting a finger onto an exposed live part is an instant C1.

Then those doing the EICR cannot be accused of drumming up work since it's all documented and the governments guideline has the final say on whether work needs carrying out or not.

Wouldn't surprise me if Siemens are currently working on such things - they are very into immutable smart homes and are currently going full steam ahead with smart cities - all of which will be run on hashgraph ledger tech.

 

[Julie.]

All that would just add to the cost of an EICR and ongoing training for us lot.
The government would have to demand an EICR on every property, at a regular interval or people just won’t get it done. (I do very few EICRs that aren’t rentals)

Much more in an EICR than an MOT.

But in principle, it's no different.

In a mot a certified inspector checks each aspect in turn, analysing each against an accepted well known standard that is communicated precisely to all inspectors.

That should be the goal for periodic inspections.

It shouldn't be, a person who trained as an installer looks at an old installation, shocked to see it's not done the way they were taught, taking a dislike to it because "that's not the way they would do it" so hardly worth going through it properly because it's definitely not acceptable, or I could get a cu change here*

*replace this with whatever work the person fancies doing.

Obviously not everyone is like this, there are some conscientious people, but as these repeated "failed EICR" threads show, this whole subject is completely misunderstood by many people out there.

And why would it be a cost for everyone, not every garage mechanic is a mot inspector, nor should every electrician be a certified inspector - it should be a specialisation just as some electricians specialise in home bashing, some in industrial, some in fire alarm systems - each area having specific knowledge, not widely known outside of that specialisation

 

[telectrix]

i better contact megger. get them ti fit a 16Mp camera in their new range of MFTs.

 

[Julie.]

I am not sure about photos and integrated data exchange etc.

Sounds too much for me, I would just like to see a better understanding of what a periodic inspection is, and a consistant standard applied.

Easier done by following a similar process to mots - which is but one example there are many areas throughout industry that follow similar processes, - aircraft, ships etc etc.

Many of these are much wider and extensive than a periodic, yet it works in their area.

 

[littlespark]

Let’s see an EICR done for 40 quid like an MOT.

ok. I see how it would be a good idea, but they need to stop the “opinion of the examiner”. faults should be a definite C1,2 or 3….

is it one spark looking for work or being conscientious? Is the other just missing simple faults or not know what they’re doing?

 

[UNG]

But in principle, it's no different.

I would agree they are but the MOT is not worth the paper it is written on once you have left the vehicle testing station unlike the EICR which can come back on the person named on the cert many months later if an incident occurs
On another point a vehicle inspection doesn't have as many variables as an electrical installation has and the MOT has no limitations to be agreed prior to inspection

In a mot a certified inspector checks each aspect in turn, analysing each against an accepted well known standard that is communicated precisely to all inspectors.

That standard is still open to interpretation by the examiner and some do get it wrong and do conduct tests outside of the guidelines laid down

That should be the goal for periodic inspections.

Unfortunately the goal posts moved in the electrical industry when it was made possible to gain a 2391 qualification without any other industry qualification or any experience

It shouldn't be, a person who trained as an installer looks at an old installation, shocked to see it's not done the way they were taught, taking a dislike to it because "that's not the way they would do it" so hardly worth going through it properly because it's definitely not acceptable, or I could get a cu change here*

*replace this with whatever work the person fancies doing.

Not quite understanding what point you are trying to make here, I would agree that when doing an inspection you have to be open minded to different installation methods but you also have to assess if that meets the minimum accepted standard
All the publications like codebreakers are not helpful and IMO are there as a crutch to those who have little or no industry experience but have their 2391 which they were taught to pass from passed exam questions and their scheme provider feels the need to support their lack of knowledge and make some extra money at the same time

Obviously not everyone is like this, there are some conscientious people, but as these repeated "failed EICR" threads show, this whole subject is completely misunderstood by many people out there.

The misunderstanding IMO is all down to how the industry and the training has changed in the last 15 - 20 years a lot of the EICR issues are down to an inability to make proper observations and objectively test the installation then compare it to appropriate standards and fill in the cert properly, you only have to look at the inconsistancy of what is posted on this forum to see that

And why would it be a cost for everyone, not every garage mechanic is a mot inspector, nor should every electrician be a certified inspector - it should be a specialisation just as some electricians specialise in home bashing, some in industrial, some in fire alarm systems - each area having specific knowledge, not widely known outside of that specialisation

With any specialisation comes the creation of specialist training courses, assessments and the creation of money making assessment bodies of which you have to be a member
In a busy MOT bay it is very easy to carry out an assessment of a number of inspectors in a short period of time or even do spot checks of MOT testing stations an MOT takes no longer than an hour
So how would you do assessments or spot checks of electrical inspectors where an EICR can take as long as it takes and when they are not doing them all day everyday
A mechanic doesn't have to test and certify his work or notify it to anyone once completed but for an electrician the testing and certification and in some cases notification of his work once completed is a standard and normal procedure and a very short step away from doing an EICR

 

[UNG]

Imo hashgraph public distributed ledgers are going to change all this.

It's possible to have your tester hooked up to an immutable public ledger where people cannot do things like pretend they've done the readings or fiddle the numbers.

I'm sure there's a way to work visual inspection stuff onto there too since immutable and verified photosgraphs are part of the ledgers upcoming use cases.

The hurdle would be getting the government to agree to an overriding authority that definitely designates certain things into a category of urgency.

For example, an exposed bus bar due to lack of a blank plate being inserted = C2. Picture is taken and uploaded to ledger, and via tokenised smart contract the customer agrees to have it remedied on the spot (electrician simply puts a blank plate in).

All immutable, admittable as evidence in a court and everyone is held to account and protected.

There's lots more to it than this but this is the gist and it's coming everywhere, to every product you can think of.

Avery Dennison have actually begun to tokenise and trace products based on their own 'fingerprint' - so you can trace say a breaker back to its origin based on microscopic pictures of the breaker. If you zoom in on material far enough it has its own unique structure like a fingerprint and there are companies out there right now doing it to stop counterfeit items etc. Atma.io are doing it and one of their clients is Adidas.

It's all run on a ledger called Hedera Hashgraph and it's going to be prevalent everywhere within 5-10 years. I can see huge use cases for the electrical industry. Just a shame i don't have the money or technical know-how to implement it in a product. Whoever does will sell it to Megger and Kewtech and be rich.

How much do you expect all this to add to the cost of an EICR when you will need a new tester and pay for whatever system is deemed the de facto interface

 

[nicebutdim]

In NI all MOTs are carried out in government test centres, which removes (almost) all issues that might be experienced in GB.

Can't think of how to apply this nugget of imformation to the EICR issue, sorry.

 

[Julie.]

We appear to be getting bogged down in the details of a MOT - I was talking about the principle behind it - - achieving common standards and maintaining them.

The MOT style of control/organisation works, and is common over many more things than a MOT - take for example certifying a vessel for commercial use - known as coding - a typical fishing boat or trip rib or similar boat perhaps taking say 6, or 12 or whatever passengers around a lake, or 500m out to sea to see wildlife etc - the cost is comparable with a proper EICR (not a fly-by) , the duration is about the same, the responsibility is considerably more than an EICR, the scope is waa.....aay more than an EICR, it doesn't just cover electrics - it covers all the mechanics, hull condition, stability calculations, SOLAS requirements etc.

Yet this is achieved , but apparently "not possible/unsuitable" for the electrical installations???

 

[timhoward]

Going back to the latest post from the OP (@danieluk84 ) - did the second electrician make any comment about the consumer unit and/or RCD situation?

Regarding observation 3 - unsupported cables - for me there would have to be evidence of deterioration /damage to cables due to lack of support, or other blindingly obvious safety issues e.g. trip hazard to raise this to C2.
An EICR is often limited to visible cables and it isn't usually terribly difficult to secure visible cables, so this may not be a big deal to resolve in reality even it is a C2. It might just need a few clips need banging in!