EICR Fail Codes

JohnW2 said:

and certainly probably not 'coded'

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Are you certain it's probably not to be coded or are you probably not certain?

JohnW2 said:

Theoretically not difficult (in that case)

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It that example it doesn't seem "not difficult" at all given all the discussion on consumer units which followed.

I've never seen such confusion over regulations (if that is the correct word and before I'm told they aren't actually regulations.........) before and that's just between a handful of posters.

JohnW2 said:

The only alternative I can think of (in circumstances as recently mentioned) would be for the inspector to be allowed to identify on the EICR the existence of a non-compliance, but without indicating (e.g. by 'coding', as at present) how dangerous the non-compliance or whether if, and how urgently' remedial action was required - but that would be pretty unsatisfactory for someone in receipt of the EICR!

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Exactly. And just think what that would mean for PRS landlords - the slightest non-compliance having to be fixed within 28 days even if it's not in the least bit dangerous

In the case of the immersion heater - lets assume it has an older stat so would have been compliant at the time it was installed. One argument says that it was once compliant - and by inference, safe - so cannot be any more than a C3 now. As we've discussed, and I think some of us accept, the danger from the stat failing depends on a number of factors - not least whether the header (or F&E*) tank is at risk of failure if the immersion stat fails (and the occupiers ignore the warning signs). IMO if the header tank is steel or copper and properly supported then it's only going to be a C3 because it's not going to fail - the loft may become a sauna, but negligible risk of boiling water being dumped through the ceiling. If it's plastic then C2 because the stat failing could well cause that - and as pointed out, I'd not be sure of identifying thermosetting vs thermoplastic.
And as EFL points out - "should" be easily rectified anyway.

* In the case of a thermal store, or the primary circuit of an open vented system, it's a F&E tank, not a header tank.

ericmark said:

But some gas boilers have the electrical connections within gas tight areas if we are to believe what we are told by gas safe people, or maybe they want the work for them self?

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Probably a bit "lost in translation" - though in my experience "some" gas people don't understand their own rules in this respect (only a couple of weeks ago I was accused of having broken the law when I hadn't).

On some boilers, like the BG badged Worcester Bosch in our rental house, the outer cover is also the cover to the combustion chamber - and that means taking the outer cover off is a gas safe only job. The practical effect is that basic plumbing or electrical issues are "out of reach" of non-registered people*
By contrast, the boiler in our own house and our rental flat both have separate covers for the combustion chamber - so the outer cover can be removed for access to the non-gassy bits.
One thing to note is that the risks are substantially lower than they used to be. These days, all boilers have the fan in the exhaust, creating a small negative pressure in the combustion chamber that draws air in through the intake. Thus any leak should draw in air from the room rather than push pocs (products of combustion) into the room. And if, as is the case with the vast majority of domestic boilers, you have a concentric intake and flue then any leak in the flue will only leak pocs into the intake air. In an extreme case,this could enrich the mixture (be reducing the amount of oxygen in the intake air) to the point where CO levels rise - but these would be blown outside.
I think there's a parallel with our own trade here. Over the years the standards have steadily tightened up, even though in most cases the old standards weren't "unsafe" if the installation was used and maintained properly. Similarly, if we look back, it's clear that there were more gas incidents - but (of the ones I've seen) they largely came down to a lack of respect for the dangers - e.g. blocking vents with room vented appliances, ignoring warning signs, ignoring routine maintenance, ...

* If they are self employed or an employee - but not if they aren't engaged in any trade. But lets not go down that rabbit hole

denso13 said:

I've never seen such confusion over regulations (if that is the correct word and before I'm told they aren't actually regulations.........) before and that's just between a handful of posters.

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Trust me, you ain't seen nothing in this thread

I had a gas safe guy to my father-in-laws house, one job was fit a new gas fire, and I watched him seal the flue with gaffa tape which once hot pealed off, OK once fire is running the draft in the flue brick will insure no flue gases escape, but was not impressed. Today use oil so no longer an issue, at work we use coal for the boiler, and it does what it says, it boils the water.

JohnW2 said:

.... several of us commented that these issus related to DNO equipment should not have been mentioned, and certainly probably not 'coded' on an EICR...

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denso13 said:

Are you certain it's probably not to be coded or are you probably not certain?

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Yes, my apologies - I did play a lot with the wording of that sentence, in an attempt to keep it concise, but I agree that what I ended up posting was a confused abomination. What I intended (less concisely, but hopefully clearer) was something along the lines of ....

denso13 said:

I get and agree with what your saying here. But how hard would it be to say that existing plastic consumer units do not need upgraded to the 18th edition and should be a code 3 or not coded at all (one or the other). Is that so difficult.

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denso13 said:

It that example it doesn't seem "not difficult" at all given all the discussion on consumer units which followed.

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It seems to me that "not difficult" is/was correct, and non-contentious, in the case you mentioned - i.e. I was simply agreeing with you that it would not be difficult (for 'someone') to 'say' what you suggested. As below, in the absence of any regulation/rules, or even universal guidance, the thing which is 'difficult' is, as below, is knowing what 'someone' could/should say that - given that there are currently no cionsistent/universal, let alone mandatory/legislated, rules about coding in EICRs.

denso13 said:

I've never seen such confusion over regulations (if that is the correct word and before I'm told they aren't actually regulations.........) before and that's just between a handful of posters.

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It's not a matter of 'putting you right' but, rather, it's the crucial issue underlying this mess. The point is that not only is the coding of things on EICRs not regulated (hence no 'regulations') but nor is their any universal/consistent guidance on such matters (and, even if they were, unless backed by legislation such guidelines would not be binding on anyone).

As I've said, although there has always been disagreement and discussion about coding on EICRs, it is only the new legislation in July that has brought the matter into sharp focus. Prior to that, there were no legislated consequences of the findings reported on an EICR so, if an inspector recorded something as "requiring urgent remedial action" (i.e. C2) when many others may not have done, the recipient of the EICR was free to ignore that 'requirement' - but, in relation to private rented property, that is no longer the case.

I think we are agreed that this is totally unsatisfactory. Whether or not this should apply to EICRs in general, or just to reports (whatever they are called - the recent legislation just talks of 'report', and doesn't specifically mention EICRs) produced in relation to private rental properties is perhaps debatable but, in terms of the latter, I would think that the best approach would be to adopt a similar approach as with MOT tests. In other words, I think that (at least for the 'landlord reports') there probably should be a set of mandatory rules about 'coding' (within or supported by legislation) which are as comprehensive as is practicable, thereby minimising the (inevitably some) situations in which 'human expert judgement' was required. If all inspectors were perfect'. That's the best way I can currently think of to attempt to maximise consistency whilst minimising uncertainties and anomalies.

Since the require for 'a report' (whatever called) for private rented properties already exists in legislation, I would hope that there would not be too much resistance to the introduction of such mandatory 'rules' for such reports, but there could possibly be more concern (about 'restriction of professional judgement') in relation to EICRs in general.

Kind Regards, John

, within

JohnW2 said:

It's good that we agree - but, if this were an EICR being done on a PRS property, per recent legislation, I wonder what, if the DNO 'decided to do nothing', this would mean in relation to the apparent legal requirement that any C1/C2s be 'remedied within 28 days' ?!

Kind Regards, John

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Great point! Because this is close to what happened. Having contacted the DNO (SSEN) and explained we had a C2; they declared it an emergency repair and sent an engineer round immediately. Late evening if I recall. The tenant would not let the engineer in; and there followed some phone calls and emails, including me sending in a detailed photo. Based on that, SSEN decided it was not urgent, and with the tenant being difficult plus SSEN workload, three weeks or so elapsed before SSEN attended to replace the missing PEN cover and seal. Only then could we do a re-run of the EICR, so completed the legal obligation to get an EICR just a couple of days before the 28-day deadline elapsed.
Crazy world we live in, I joined a Landlord forum to ask about this and it seems that technically my son would have been liable to a fine of up to £30,000; even if it was because the DNO decided not to expedite the repair; or if the tenant refused or delayed access.
My son is currently abroad -- fortunately for him Dad understands electrics and has time (retired!) to chase the various people involved.

EFLImpudence said:

Was the legislation really necessary at all?
Unscrupulous landlords will continue to be unscrupulous.

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Absolutely right!
Only now, there is also an opportunity for unscrupulous companies to take advantage of the legislation. My son was quoted £1100 to rectify the "urgent" issues and provide an EICR, with the quote highlighting the law, the deadline, and the very high fines involved. When we asked for a breakdown of the costs, it included a whole new consumer unit - blatantly dishonest of course since that was coded C3 - and massively overkill IMHO (even if it is plastic) on a house about 12 years old. Fortunately I was able to advise him otherwise and we used a different electrician!

JohnW2 said:

... I would think that the best approach would be to adopt a similar approach as with MOT tests. In other words, I think that (at least for the 'landlord reports') there probably should be a set of mandatory rules about 'coding' (within or supported by legislation) which are as comprehensive as is practicable, thereby minimising the (inevitably some) situations in which 'human expert judgement' was required.

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You are aware aren't you just how much of the moT is down to the inspector's judgement ?
Yes, many things are simple yes or no - a light either works or it doesn't. But in the electrical world we have that - e.g. fault impedance is low enough to trip OCP or it isn't.
In the MoT there are items like "corrosion" where the inspector must make a judgement as to whether corrosion is insignificant, or warrants an advisory, or is serious enough for a fail. Similar with play in joints and bearings, judder and grab in the brakes, "visible" smoke in the exhaust, oil leaks, and ...

The main difference IMO is that the MoT business is heavily regulated, the inspectors have to undergo formal initial and ongoing training (where I suspect official guidance is given on making the above determinations), and the equipment is eye wateringly expensive. My local place put new gear in a few years ago - Mike did tell me what it cost, I don't recall now but it was definitely in "how much " territory.
MoT stations are also now very tightly monitored. Apart from visits, the computer system now tracks statistics - and a few have been "told off" for (e.g.) just popping a new bulb in and passing a car instead of failing it and then replacing the bulb because the computer flagged up that their failure rate on bulbs was significantly below average.

Vs the electrical industry where the regs don't make sense, and the very organisations that should be providing the guidance have failed to do so. If those organisations did a bit of g.o.y.a. and produced some guidance, we'd be in a much better situation. But even so, another big difference between electrical inspections and MoTs is the variety of stuff to be inspected. All road vehicles share common characteristics, and even the way out and whacky don't really introduce all that much that's new. Pinning down the vast array of different electrical equipments and practices to a "simple" set of rules would be a Sisyphean task.

DIYinBerks said:

Crazy world we live in, I joined a Landlord forum to ask about this and it seems that technically my son would have been liable to a fine of up to £30,000; even if it was because the DNO decided not to expedite the repair; or if the tenant refused or delayed access.

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Tenant refusing access is a simple one - the landlord is off the hook provided he can show that he took reasonable measures to comply, it's the same with gas safety checks BTW. And this did come up during the lockdown, when some tenants were in "no-one is coming into my house" mode. More complicated if your usual engineers are closed down (as ours were). The HSE weren't all that helpful with their advice on that one, only advising that you needed to have taken reasonable steps and documented that you could not find anyone to do it.
Should it come down to potential action over the DNO stuff - which most think is highly unlikely as councils don't use the other legislation they have available, and don't have the budget for the manpower to do so. The landlord's defence would be to have reported it, and point out that legally there is nothing in the landlord's power to have the repairs done should the DNO not attend in a reasonable time. Not being legally allowed to do something ought to be a defence against a prosecution for not doing it !

DIYinBerks said:

Only now, there is also an opportunity for unscrupulous companies to take advantage of the legislation. My son was quoted £1100 to rectify the "urgent" issues and provide an EICR, with the quote highlighting the law, the deadline, and the very high fines involved. When we asked for a breakdown of the costs, it included a whole new consumer unit - blatantly dishonest of course since that was coded C3 - and massively overkill IMHO (even if it is plastic) on a house about 12 years old. Fortunately I was able to advise him otherwise and we used a different electrician!

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That's nothing new, the charlatans crawled out of the swamp to take advantage of "Part P" in 2005 - some of us have been predicting a similar wave of dishonesty over this.
BTW - as the firm was being dishonest, did you report them both to their scam (I assume they were a member of one of the schemes) and trading standards ? This needs to be done, it's the only way they'll be curtailed in their dishonesty.

EDIT: It would help if agents were better educated as well. As it is, it's easy to just swallow the "carefully worded" information put out by vested interests (i.e. the scams) and then incorrectly advise landlords. I got an email from our agent telling me what I HAD to do. I tore it to shreds and pointed out five factual errors in just two sentences - I didn't get a reply to that email

DIYinBerks said:

Great point! Because this is close to what happened. Having contacted the DNO (SSEN) and explained we had a C2; they declared it an emergency repair and sent an engineer round immediately. Late evening if I recall. The tenant would not let the engineer in; and there followed some phone calls and emails, including me sending in a detailed photo. Based on that, SSEN decided it was not urgent, and with the tenant being difficult plus SSEN workload, three weeks or so elapsed before SSEN attended to replace the missing PEN cover and seal. Only then could we do a re-run of the EICR, so completed the legal obligation to get an EICR just a couple of days before the 28-day deadline elapsed.

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Intresting - but, as you go on to imply, in terms of the question I asked, you were lucky that the 'remedial work' was eventually done. That remains unanswered my question as what would happen, in terms of the bureaucracy, had the DNO 'decided not to do anything' (ever) ...

DIYinBerks said:

Crazy world we live in, I joined a Landlord forum to ask about this and it seems that technically my son would have been liable to a fine of up to £30,000; even if it was because the DNO decided not to expedite the repair; or if the tenant refused or delayed access.

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Quite - although I doubt it would ever come to that. I can't see that a court would ever conclude that someone was at fault for 'failing to do' something which they literally could not do (without breaking other regulations/laws, by getting someone else to 'interfere with' DNO property).

In practice, I presume what one would do would be to refer the LA to a DNO and let them argue it out between themselves. If it ever did get to, or near to, court, in addition to what I've said above, there is also the (I would thing strong) argument that, as I have said in other posts, matters relating to DNO equipment should not have been on an EICR in the first place, and therefore should not have put a lndlord under legal obligation to 'remedy' them.

Kind Regards, John

SimonH2 said:

You are aware aren't you just how much of the moT is down to the inspector's judgement ?

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Indeed, and that has been discussed at some length. However, the point is that with MOTs, the only things (necessarily) left to the inspector's (subjective) judgement are those things for which objective pass/fail criteria cannot be specified, whilst with EICRs, absolutely everything is potentially subject to the inspector's judgement (with the single explicit exception, per BS7671, being the requirement to give at least a C3 to the absence of RCDs). As you go on to say ...

SimonH2 said:

The main difference IMO is that the MoT business is heavily regulated, the inspectors have to undergo formal initial and ongoing training ...

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... which is exactly (with 'licensed inspectors') what I've suggested is really needed for "landlord electrical inspections" (not necessarily other "EICRs", since they generally result in no legal consequences). ... together with my suggestion that those inspectors found to be providing 'incorrect' reports should lose their licenses to undertake them.

Kind Regards, John

JohnW2 said:

Intresting - but, as you go on to imply, in terms of the question I asked, you were lucky that the 'remedial work' was eventually done. That remains unanswered my question as what would happen, in terms of the bureaucracy, had the DNO 'decided not to do anything' (ever) ...

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My expectation - absolutely nothing at all As per my previous post - LAs are notorious for not using the powers they have, and asking for more (or just being given more because "there's a problem") to deal with the problems they could already deal with. EDIT: Just to be clear, there was already legislation/regulations in place that could be used to deal with unsafe electricals - it's just that they didn't give a simple "not got the magic bit of paper, you're in the wrong" means or prosecution.
That also brings something else to mind ... The law on EICRs in PRS doesn't seem to cater for getting a second opinion and someone else deciding that there's no problem. It only talks about "remedial works being done" as though the initial finding is a fact that can't be wrong. Though I suppose just proving a second report with a "pass" would keep the pen pushers happy - they'd not know the difference as long as they have a bit of paper.
I think we'll see more of this as people seek a second opinion

SimonH2 said:

BTW - as the firm was being dishonest, did you report them both to their scam (I assume they were a member of one of the schemes) and trading standards ? This needs to be done, it's the only way they'll be curtailed in their dishonesty.

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Not yet is the answer. I wanted to get some opinions on the coding before we decide if/who to complain to. Although I trained as an electrical engineer many years ago, my expertise is IT and not domestic electrics so I wanted to hear some expert opinion. Based on what I have read, it's clear to me that we should complain.
So a big "THANK-YOU" to everyone who has taken time to comment.

SimonH2 said:

My expectation - absolutely nothing at all As per my previous post - LAs are notorious for not using the powers they have ...

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Often, yes, but I know of a few occasions on which people I know have suffered from 'exceptions to that rule'! However, as I wrote, I think that one would be able to 'win' in the situation we';re talking about

SimonH2 said:

That also brings something else to mind ... The law on EICRs in PRS ...

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Just to be 'correct', as I've said, the "law on PRS" does not mention EICRs at all - only "reports". It's only the associated guideline document (which is not law) which mentions EICRs.

SimonH2 said:

... doesn't seem to cater for getting a second opinion and someone else deciding that there's no problem. ...

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That's the very point I have been repeatedly making. It would not be 'quite as bad' if a second opinion were an option, but it seems that its not. As I read the legislation, a copy of the first EICR has to go to the LA and that triggers an obligation on the landlord to get any C2s/C!s remedied within 28 days of that first EICR. There is nothing in the legislation which suggests that a second EICR which reported fewer (or no!) C1/C2 could cancel, or even delay, the 'remedial timeclock' which had started at the date of the first report. ... but perhaps I have misunderstood?

Kind Regards, John

JohnW2 said:

... but perhaps I have misunderstood?

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No, you haven't misunderstood - that's a rather fundamental omission in the regs.

SimonH2 said:

No, you haven't misunderstood - that's a rather fundamental omission in the regs.

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I agree that its something pretty fundamental that is absent from the legislation, but I'm not so sure that it wasn't deliberately omitted. They may have been fearing that such an option could lead to the delaying practice of 'third opinions' etc. etc. However, as I've said before, there certainly ought to be some simple, quick and effective 'appeals process' in place, however it is achieved or administered.

Particularly in the absence of very strict demands as regards who may undertake the 'inspections', a situation in which a landlord can find himself/herself legally obliged to spend (potentially a lot of) money on doing something unnecessary because of the incorrect report of an inspector is really not acceptable.

Having said that, no amount of 'second opinions' and/or appeal processes would be satisfactory solution for landlords, most of whom will, understandably, not know when an EICR is 'incorrect', so wouldn't know when to appeal or seek a second opinion. For them, it would seem that the only real solution would be to minimise the proportion of EICRs which were incorrect in the first place, presumably by a system which enabled the 'weeding out' of the less-than-competent perpetrators (which, in turn, requires some sort of licensing/registration/whatever).

That's how I see it, anyway!

Kind Regards, John

I have read the law again. From what I understand after 28 days the local authority has to tell the landlord exactly what he has to do, and he has 21 days to make written representations against the notice, or 28 days to comply with the notice.

So although an EICR may trigger the council to look at the building, and they need to specify the duty or duties that the local housing authority considers the private landlord has failed to comply with. Once the landlord replies then the clock is stopped until the council has considered any objection and replied.

What I wonder is if the landlord simply says sorry not viable to do repairs, since house is seen as potentially dangerous you will need to vacate. If the property is considered as not inhabitable, be it leaking roof, flood etc, then no rates are charged on it, while it is being dealt with. So council is faced with squashing the request for repairs, or rehouse occupants and forgo any rates which would be paid.

Clearly with things like floods the landlord has no control, but when I decided to move, I looked at sell the house or rent the house, and renting should provide a steady income, so to start with I considered renting, however when I saw all the hoops I had to jump through I decided forget it, I'm selling.