EICR 'fail'

SimonH2 said:

As you say, nothing to stop it. I think the OP is thinking that if anything were to happen, then someone might suggest he didn't do the job properly because he had a personal vested interest in passing it. Personally I'm happy to take that risk, and should anything happen then I'd be "let me refer to my notes, otherwise known as the EICR certificate - yes I tested that X, and at the time it tested as <whatever figures>". And here's my daily calibration log for the MFT showing that it hadn't drifted either before or after being used for these tests.

As Ericmark says, I think most landlords do "do the right thing". Unfortunately, as long as there are those who don't and agents that support them, then we'll be stuck with all the legislation. It will be interesting to see when No2 daughter's landlord decides to get one done, and even more interesting to see how many things it fails on - if it doesn't fail, then someone will be getting thrown out of their scam membership.

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I see no reason a qualified person cannot do their own work/inspections but as I mentioned before - I'm not electrically qualified - however I sub to the guy who did my inspections and I've done a lot of that sort of work on his behalf.
I don't fancy the courtcase [god forbid it should ever happen] and having to explain how I [as a non qualified person] had done the CU change and inspection and someone else has signed the documents.

SUNRAY said:

I see no reason a qualified person cannot do their own work/inspections ...

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I'm not sure that it's necessarily all that obvious. As I asked before (with no answer as yet) ....

JohnW2 said:

I was just interested in the fact that the legislation would seem to allow it. Is an MOT tester allowed to test his/her own vehicle?

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... and I still have no idea of the answer to that. However, there are certainly some walks of life in which 'conflicts of interest' much wider than just 'oneself' preclude one from doing something ... and, I suppose as you are suggesting about yourself, plenty of other situations in which it is not actually 'disallowed' but is nevertheless 'highly undesirable'.

Kind Regards, John

SimonH2 said:

Correct, the legislation doesn't require scam membership for EICRs, but agents (at least mine did) telling landlords that the electrician does need to be registered. Interestingly I came across this earlier today while looking up something else :

https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.o...on-registered-electrician-to-rewire-my-house/
"Although they could rewire your house, an unregistered electrician is unable to self-certify their work and therefore won't be able to supply you with a Building Regulations (Part P) compliance certificate, which is required by law for all notifiable work"
An example of the sort of thing I've been accusing the scam industry of saying. It's carefully worded so that it isn't actually am outright lie, but it gives a very inaccurate (or at least, incomplete) picture and is clearly intended to persuade the general public that only registered electricians are able to do electrical work. Actually, I would say that it would class a a lie - by omission. I CBA to pursue it, but it's probably illegal under UK fraud law which (from memory) explicitly includes "omissions" as a source of dishonesty.

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The change in 2017(?) to the notifiable work at least pushed back against a lot of this so basically unless you're adding a new circuit or changing a CU then it's not notifiable any more. I share your frustrations with the growing number of sparks that attempt to discourage DIY; to me this just pushes work underground. However from a practical point of view - you should be testing your electrics after making changes; even the pros occasionally get the insulation snagged in the terminal so convert a ring into two radials etc. That's why they test afterwards to prove that the change is good. How many DIYer's do you know with a multimeter capable of reading 1/100 ohm ? When it costs at least £500 to buy a multifunction tester; how many DIYers do you think are going to reasonably test their changes or will they just put something into the socket, see it works and says jobs done? Most DIYers I know want to do things right however don't have the tools to test and I don't see an easy solution for this.

On EICRs - the market has been taken over by drives by. When I see someone offering a 10 circuit EIRC for £100 and saying they'll be done in < 1hour I know it's not worth the paper it's written on

Fwad said:

The change in 2017(?) to the notifiable work at least pushed back against a lot of this so basically unless you're adding a new circuit or changing a CU then it's not notifiable any more. I share your frustrations with the growing number of sparks that attempt to discourage DIY; to me this just pushes work underground.

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Indeed (and, for the record, it was April 2013 ].

Fwad said:

However from a practical point of view - you should be testing your electrics after making changes; .... How many DIYer's do you know with a multimeter capable of reading 1/100 ohm ? When it costs at least £500 to buy a multifunction tester; how many DIYers do you think are going to reasonably test their changes or will they just put something into the socket, see it works and says jobs done? Most DIYers I know want to do things right however don't have the tools to test and I don't see an easy solution for this.

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Quite so - as you say, there is no real solution. We've had people here who have gone through the motions of saying that they are "very happy with DIY electrical work", but then qualify it by adding "... but only if it is 'fully tested' as required by BS7671" - which, as you imply, effectively means that they are saying that virtually all DIY electrical work should not be done!

I am a 'DIYer' who does have an MFT and other test kit, but that puts me in a very small minority. As for the others, my personal view is that the best we can do is to attempt to advise DIYers how to do things as safely as possible within the limitations of their knowledge, capabilities and resources (including sometimes telling them that they really should not be attempting the work in question). The reality, in practice, is that if the work is done 'carefully and competently', the risks associated with not being able to 'fully test' fairly minor electrical work are generally pretty minimal - and the risks of doing things without optimal advice are probably even greater.

Fwad said:

On EICRs - the market has been taken over by drives by. When I see someone offering a 10 circuit EIRC for £100 and saying they'll be done in < 1hour I know it's not worth the paper it's written on

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Quite so. In the past it didn't matter quite so much (albeit it was unsatisfactory, even then) but the recent appearance of the legislation related to rented properties has given 'teeth' to the EICRs, moving the problem (of people being at risk of incurring appreciable unnecessary cost as a result of 'incorrect' EICRs) to a whole new level.

Something needs to be done about this - and, as I've said a good few times, my view of the ideal (which probably won't happen) would be for these 'inspections with teeth' (whether called 'EICRs' or whatever) should be highly regulated, and only undertaken by 'licensed' people (with demanding requirements of, and monitoring of, the competence of such people). ... but that's just my personal opinion!

Kind Regards, John

Does anyone know why this new legislation was introduced - by a Tory, if not Conservative, government?

Also, did anyone hear anything about it before-hand. It just seems to have appeared at, if not after, the introduction date?

...and during a pandemic.

EFLImpudence said:

Does anyone know why this new legislation was introduced - by a Tory, if not Conservative, government?

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It doesn't seem that anyone here knows. I doubt that political ideologies come into it (on the contrary, one would think). One imagines that lobbying by 'pressure/interest groups/organisations' is the most likely explanation - although, having said that, are we not simply 'following Scotland'?

EFLImpudence said:

Also, did anyone hear anything about it before-hand. It just seems to have appeared at, if not after, the introduction date?

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I can only speak for myself, but I'd heard nothing about it until a few weeks before it came into force. However, for a long time there has been speculation (here and otherwise) that 'it was coming', and even suggestions/fears (fears other than on the part of those who do EICRs!) that it might eventually apply to all premises, not just the PRS.

EFLImpudence said:

...and during a pandemic.

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Quite so!

One possible 'positive' outcome might be that if it eventually forces a lot of improvements (in regulation etc.) in relation to EICRs, that might be a good thing in relation to EICRs in general - the issues about which we have 'lived with' in the past because they generally didn't have any 'teeth'.

Kind Regards, John

JohnW2 said:

are we not simply 'following Scotland'?

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That is often the case.

However, Scotland has a left wing government who like this sort of thing.

I would have thought a Tory government would be more on the side of the landlords, not that they seem to like individual buy-to-let landlords - which is what I thought private landlords meant but, as you have taught me, it applies to the Duke of Westminster and his ilk as well.

EFLImpudence said:

That is often the case. ... However, Scotland has a left wing government who like this sort of thing. ... I would have thought a Tory government would be more on the side of the landlords, not that they seem to like individual buy-to-let landlords - which is what I thought private landlords meant but, as you have taught me, it applies to the Duke of Westminster and his ilk as well.

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Indeed, and that is why I said that I didn't think that party-political ideologies were a significant part of the explanation, since one would not have expected a 'right wing' government to do things which disadvantaged 'private landlords'.

Having said that, I think that party-political labels have currently gone right out of the window, anyway, since I doubt that you'd be able to name any 'left wing' government that has ever done anything like as much, or dramatic, 'left wing things' as our current government has done during this year (and, undoubtedly, more to come) - which may present a problem for traditionally 'left wing' parties at the next election (since their policies might well move us 'to the right' of where we currently are!!).

Kind Regards, John

EFLImpudence said:

Does anyone know why this new legislation was introduced - by a Tory, if not Conservative, government?

Also, did anyone hear anything about it before-hand. It just seems to have appeared at, if not after, the introduction date?

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As a Landlord I had been aware of its proposal and impending introduction for quite a while.
The first notice I have from my Agent is dated November and I believe I knew about it prior to that.

SUNRAY said:

As a Landlord I had been aware of its proposal and impending introduction for quite a while. The first notice I have from my Agent is dated November and I believe I knew about it prior to that.

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Given how long it takes (usually years) to think about, talk about and create draft legislation, and then get it introduced, it must have 'been around' for quite a long time - and, as I've said, there have certainly been discussions for a long time (including here) about the fact that 'it was coming'. It was actually appeared as legislation on 18th March 2020.

However, as for details and timings, I imagine that agents would have been early to know, and will usually have passed the information on to their landlord clients. However, as for 'small' landlords who didn't use agents, I suspect that many may have been in the same boat as me, not finding out anything very specific until immediately before its implementation.

Kind Regards, John