This is not a drive by

[Ned Gibbons]

So I'm a tenant, just had the letting agent's electrician perform an eicr.

Would anyone like to guess what the test consisted of?

Quick hint, they arrived at 4pm on a Friday.

 

[ipf]

Yes, the regs must be complied with. And a fundamental feature of the regs is covered in the introduction on page 4 that I referred to, which states that existing installations may not meet the latest regs, but may be safe. I'm not sure why you are trying to prove that every property must comply with every single reg in the 18th edition.

Because it's a fairly plausible reason for extra work under false pretences, perhaps?......to some rogues, at least.

 

[DPG]

Surely this is only relevant to the landlord and not those carrying out the EICR. To me, not that we doing much domestic you just carry on as you always have, do the job submit the Report. Then it becomes the landlords problem. These new laws do not affect how an EICR is carried out.

That's correct, but surely the landlord would look to an electrician for advice on things like this. Same as they would ask a Gas Safe installer about gas requirements.

 

[westward10]

That's correct, but surely the landlord would look to an electrician for advice on things like this. Same as they would ask a Gas Safe installer about gas requirements.

I'd just act dumb, probably wouldn't need to act to be honest.

 

[littlespark]

Next time you enter a property to conduct an EICR boys and girls, look down at yourselves and wonder what are all those red laser dots on you ?

someone trying to find out how far away you are???

 

[Dartlec]

badly worded, unthought out pen pusher's law. I quote from "Oliver". Mr. Bumble (Neddy Seagoon). The law is an ---.

I think we can be fairly sure that the intention of the law was not to produce lots of additional costs on landlords - if only because of the number of MPs who are landlords....

Of course, in an ideal world, the published Government guidance would make things clearer:

Will all installations have to comply with the 18th edition, even if they were installed before this edition was in force?​

The Regulations state that a landlord must ensure that electrical safety standards are met, and that investigative or remedial work is carried out if the report requires this.​

​

The electrical installation should be safe for continued use. In practice, if the report does not require investigative or remedial work, the landlord will not be required to carry out any further work.​

​

Reports can also recommend improvement, in addition to requiring remedial work. If a report only recommends improvement but does not require any further investigative or remedial work to be carried out – indicated with a ‘C3’ classification code – then while it would be good practice to carry out this work, it would not be required to comply with the Regulations.​

So at least that's clear....as mud.

The thing is, plenty of things (most I'd say) that don't 'comply' with 18th edition but are safe would be coded as C3 - but this clearly states that changing them would not be required to comply with the Regulations... (I know guidance isn't law, but if there was an argument in court it would be used to decide the intention of the law at least).

Were any of the Scams involved in the consultation period for this? I certainly agree they should be doing a LOT more to assist us AND landlords.

NICEIC "Domestic Inspector" here I come....

 

[Soi disant]

It is indeed an apallingly "designed" law. You can see how it could (most likely did, IMO) arise - someone thought that a law requiring landlords to ensure that the electrical installations in their properties were "safe" would be a good thing to have (and it is, really), and decided that "safe" would be defined as "meeting" the standards laid down by the current British Standard for electrical installations. To anybody who

1. didn't realise that the regulations regularly change in significant ways, and that what were conformant practices on one day could become non-conformant the next, and
2. that that situation was compounded by the regulations not requiring existing installations to be brought into conformance, and
3. that the regulations contain almost nothing objective about how seriously non-conformances should be taken, leaving such matters to the subjective judgement of the guy doing an inspection,

that would have seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Maybe they remembered all the people at Part P time saying "why didn't they just make it compulsory to comply with BS 7671".

They probably had no idea that they were writing a law which says that electrical installations have to meet the requirements of regulations which do not necessarily require non-compliant installations to be brought into compliance, nor that Fred could do an inspection on Friday and come to one conclusion and then Mick on Monday come to a different one.

As an aside I think it is to be regretted that, when you use the definition from the Wiring Regulations themselves :

Non-compliance. A non-conformity that may give rise to danger.

what that statement on p4 actually translates to is that installations which have non-conformities that may give rise to danger are not necessarily unsafe for continued use or require upgrading.

It would be better if it had been written with more consideration of the distinction between "non-compliance" and "non-conformance".

 

[Soi disant]

In England however the wording is very different, it does not demand that an inspection is undertaken in line with the current Regs, instead it states very clearly that the ‘Private landlord must ensure that the “electrical safety standards” are met’, and that the “electrical safety standards” “means the 18th edition of the wiring regulations”

At the time it was introduced I asked a lawyer colleague (specialises in this area for building/engineering companies) if this should be interpreted as the installation should be compliant with the 18th, or merely tested in accordance with the guidelines of the 18th.
His opinion was very clear – it states “The standards of the 18th Must be met” doesn’t state “should be inspected to”.

The thing is though that as the law requires a report detailing the extent to which the installation does or does not meet the "electrical safety standards of the 18th Edition of the Wiring Regulations”, then they are almost bound to do that via an 18th-compliant EICR. The conscientous guy will consider that to be the correct, professional, thing to do, and the drive-by (or should that be "ride-by"?) one will want his fakery to have the appearance of truth. Landlords will want the CYA insurance of a report showing all the ways in which their installation was compared to the requirements of the regs. And the government guidance to Local Authorities says

Inspectors will use the following classification codes to indicate where a landlord must undertake remedial work. More information can be found in the 18th edition of the Wiring Regulations.

• Code 1 (C1): Danger present. Risk of injury.
• Code 2 (C2): Potentially dangerous.
• Further Investigation (FI): Further investigation required without delay.
• Code 3 (C3): Improvement recommended. Further remedial work is not required for the report to be deemed satisfactory.

Doing a BS 7671 compliant EICR is about as compulsory as it could possibly be short of it being explicitly written into the law. God knows why it wasn't.

Like everyone, I think the scams are a bit of a rip-off, but this is where they should actually be serving us, that is to seek official clarification from government and thereby direct their scheme members as to what meaning ought to be applied.

They're not helping - I believe that different ones give different coding advice to their members. For example NICEIC advise a C3 for sockets with no RCD protection when they are not likely to supply stuff outdoors, and my understanding is that NAPIT advise a C2 for all RCD-less sockets.

 

[telectrix]

that law was written by a committee who's last remit was to design a horse. they produced a camel.

 

[Julie.]

The problem is that if you say:

"landlord's should ensure their electrical system is to the current standards"

it sounds right!

Why shouldn't they?

It's only us that really understand the implications of that.

To any casual observer there would be a somewhat indignant response if we suggest otherwise.

My usual example is of course the colour of the wiring, that usually makes people realise what it would mean.

With that background, it's so easy for those writing these non-electrical laws to miss such a point.

 

[Julie.]

that law was written by a committee who's last remit was to design a horse. they produced a camel.

You getting the hump @telectrix