EICR - does it cover me?

[Taylortwocities]

It's even worse than that. It's actually "Pendants Corner's".

I would like to think this was sarcasm on the Mod's part but I wouldn't believe him if he said it was.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Please accept my sincere apologies for the offensive way in which I started my previous post. I should have known that starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunctive would cause such upset.

I was the one who commented, and I can assure you it caused me no "upset" - I think it's wrong, and I wish people would think about what they are doing when they write it, which is why I thought it was worth (what seems to me) a gentle non-aggressive non-critical way to highlight the issue.

Returning to the topic. I am sure that the work I have carried out myself is not notifiable, otherwise I wouldn’t have attempted it, it’s not really worth the hassle. However, lacking the necessary testing equipment required to accurately complete a minor works cert, I was hoping that having the EICR done would suffice in place of this - hence my query.

Quite honestly, just move on and forget about it. Houses are basically sold as-seen, and whilst documentation is always nice to have ultimately it is the responsibility of the buyer to commission inspections and reports if he (or more likely his lender) want them.

Regarding the property information form, all it asked was had there been any electrical work done to the property since 2005, to which I said yes. It also asked when the last electrical test had been done, to which I answered 2018 and enclosed the certificate.

You can do no more. You've already done more than most would bother to. If you do get buyers pretending to be getting all concerned remember it's just business, and everything is about negotiating the price. Whatever they wrap it up in, just ignore them and focus on the one salient question "Am I prepared to sell the house for this price?".

Any ideas appreciated.

Buying and selling houses have more than enough sources of stress - don't add your electrical DIY to them.

 

[scousespark]

I would have thought that. However, you may recall that I ended up in a heated argument with a professional electrician here because I expressed surprise/shock when he expressed the view that (his?) routine practice with commercial EICRs was not to inspect and test all circuits - particularly not circuits which "had not had anything done to them" since the last EICR..
Kind Regards, John

Firstly, I have never had a heated argument over the internet. I don't tend to get into heated arguments in real life either.

Secondly, I don't know if you read my post as saying I do half-arsed jobs. If so, that is not what I wrote or what I meant. I follow the practices laid down by in BS76761 and the sampling I referrred to is defined in GN3. It takes account of the fact that commercial and industrial installations have an element of over-sight missing in domestic. I don't know how many trading electricians contribute to this site, or the tye of work they do, so can't comment as to whether this is something anybody here has experience of. There are different schools of thought and there are discussions about sampling in other sites (IET for one).
I found the following link which explains sampling better than I could
https://www.wiley.com/legacy/wileychi/eca_wiringregulations/supp/Appendix_15.pdf

In addition to this, I was also questioned as to how this could be allowed as it has a potential to leave dangerous faults undetected. In reality, most faults are picked up as part of daily use.

In July the HSE released the RIDDOR stats. This is the link http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/pdf/fatalinjuries.pdf
The spreadsheet in the following link shows the causes www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/tables/ridfatal.xlsx

I don't know what I will be picked up on next, but look forward to the next response.

 

[JohnW2]

Good to see you - it's been a while. I trust all is well with you.

Secondly, I don't know if you read my post as saying I do half-arsed jobs.

Not at all. I read it as saying that you followed an accepted standard practice, and expressed my personal surprise that such a practice (not examining all circuits in a commercial or industrial EICR) was the 'accepted standard practice".

You are undoubtedly right in saying that the increased 'oversight' in many commercial/industrial environments means that 'unexpected' faults arising in circuits which were previously OK and which have not been worked on since the previous EICR will be less common than faults arising in domestic installations. However, the regulation of safety-related matters (particularly in commercial/industrial/'work' environments) is not known for ignoring risks which are 'not common' - so I remain surprised (but do not doubt what you are telling me).

I also wonder how you define 'commercial' in this context, since I feel sure that there are many (mainly small) shops and offices whose electrical installation is subject to no more 'oversight' than is the case for most domestic installations.

Kind Regards, John

 

[scousespark]

I missed the last reply and I think this shows you are missing my point. The guidance in GN3 relies on an assessment of the installation.

 

[securespark]

Shouldn't it be Pendants' corner(s)?

 

[JohnW2]

I missed the last reply and I think this shows you are missing my point. ... The guidance in GN3 relies on an assessment of the installation.

The original point you made seemed extremely clear, and not really capable of being 'missed' - namely that it is 'accepted standard practice' to not inspect/test all circuits in the course of an EICR on a commercial/industrial installation. I have never questioned the correctness of your statement, and have merely expressed my personal surprise that such is the 'standard accepted practice'. It is you who decided to pursue the matter further when I mentioned to someone else what you have (I presume correctly) told me.

The guidance in GN3 relies on an assessment of the installation.

I'm not sure how the guidance in GN3 got into this discussion - but, in a commercial/industrial setting, I presume you are still talking about an 'assessment' which does not involve (or benefiot from the results of) inspecting and/or testing all circuits.

What surprises me (and, I suppose, also 'concerns me' to some extent) is that the thinking behind this 'accepted standard practice' (and presumably also the 'assessment' to which you refer) appears to be a belief that 'spontaneous' faults do not arise - i.e. that if a circuit was fine at the last EICR, and if nothing has been 'done to it' since that last EICR, then 'there cannot be a fault', so that the circuit does not need to be inspected or tested as part of the current EICR. However, previously absent (or not detected) faults clearly can appear in a circuit which 'has had nothing done to it'. To mention but the most obvious, a previously in-spec RCD/RCBO can move out-of-spec, a loose connection may exist for years before 'showing itself' (even on testing) connectors/accessories can suffer thermal (or mechanical) damage etc.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

Commercial inspection and testing is normally test X% and if no faults good enough, if faults test 3X%. And so on until with many faults all is tested, this is normally accepted by the HSE as long as each inspection and test selects different items to check, and to ensure this the tester is shown the previous results so one he can in the main select other items to test, and where testing the same item once can assess and degrade in readings.

It is of course assumed no electrician is trying to hide anything, errors yes, but hide no.

Domestic however any idiot could have done the work, and rarely is the electrician given previous results.

As far as house sale goes, the electrician may be unaware the house is for sale, and think he is looking for anything that has degraded and comments on anything needing upgrading. So the recommendation is on change of occupant an EICR is done, however this really needs doing by the buyer not the seller after he has taken possession so seller can't alter anything after the inspection like remove a light fitting.

Although the buyer may try to claim some compensation for faults found, although unlikely to succeed, as far as claim for injury caused, that's his fault for no testing after taking possession. So I would say you the seller has no worries.

 

[JohnW2]

Commercial inspection and testing is normally test X% and if no faults good enough, if faults test 3X%. And so on until with many faults all is tested ....

Unless you're talking about types of installation which have a pretty high average/expected number of faults, that approach is pretty flawed in statistical terms. If the average number of faults in installations of the type in question is low, then failure to find one in the first X% (say 30%) of items/circuits/whatever gives no real indication of the likelihood that one or more faults would be found if one tested 'the rest'. Even if the average number of faults pwr installation were 'moderate' there would still be a substantial chance of one not seeing a fault in, say, a 30% sample.

... this is normally accepted by the HSE as long as each inspection and test selects different items to check, and to ensure this the tester is shown the previous results so one he can in the main select other items to test, and where testing the same item once can assess and degrade in readings.

That's a bit different, since it's really an EICR undertaken over a period of time (probably years). If, say, an 'EICR' is undertaken once per year, and the rotation of 'what is tested each time' is such that everything gets tested, say, at least once every 5 years, then if a 5-year interval between each thing being tested is considered acceptable, then that would be fine. What would, in my opinion, be very wrong would be to claim that any one of those individual 'EICRs' represented a report on the condition of the installation at the time it was undertaken ...

... imagine if they did that with 'monthly MOTs' - this month we'll check the brakes, next month we'll check the steering, the month after that we'll check the tyres ..... None of those MOTs would give an indication of the overall condition of the vehicle at a particular point in time.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

I do agree with JohnW2 however what I was pointing out much depends on what the person testing is asked to do, my son for a short time worked for a firm specialising in inspection and testing. He would be told what to test and inspect and often it was not the whole building.

This house has three insulation certificates covering the house, one when wetroom fitted, one when kitchen fitted, and one when rest of house rewired, if you look at the latter, it does not actually say he did not rewire kitchen and wetroom, I would guess he did actually inspect and test them but it does not make it clear.

The wetroom originally had a power shower, when the new boiler was fitted the power shower was removed, I have a minor works showing boiler changed, but nothing for removal of power shower, I would hope cables removed or at least disconnected at the FCU, but never checked, they could be connected.

So if the wires were left in the wall and some one switched on the power shower in error and some one gets a shock, who would be responsible? Not the originally installer, could be central heating firm, but who, plumber who swapped power shower for normal type, electrician who wired boiler, foreman who was in charge of the job, or firm who rewired house for not checking, or me the owner.

If one removes a FCU and all the wires are connected it is not something one would look at and say that's wrong. If the foreman did not get the electrician to make the wires safe a fault like that could go undetected for years and years.

 

[JohnW2]

I do agree with JohnW2 however what I was pointing out much depends on what the person testing is asked to do, my son for a short time worked for a firm specialising in inspection and testing. He would be told what to test and inspect and often it was not the whole building.

Yes, it depends upon why the EICR is being done, in particular if any third-parties (such as the HSE you mentioned) have an interest in the results.

A person commissioning an EICR is obviously free to specify/restrict the extent of the I&T as much as they want. The question of whether the resultant report would satisfy a third party if it related to less than a 'full' I&T of the installation is a different matter - and only the third party concerned could answer that.

You said that the HSE will accept an "X%" EICR if the situation is such that every item/circuit will be subjected to I&T within a specified period of time (over a number of EICRs) - and, as I said, that would be fine if they were happy with the resultant maximum possible interval between two I&Ts of any particular item/circuit. I would be less sure that they would accept a "random X%" being tested every time or, even worse, the same X% being tested every time. My (and quite probably their) concern would be that there would be a temptation for inspectors to I&T the same 'easiest X%' every time!

Kind Regards, John

 

[scousespark]

The HSE have access to vastly more data than most electricians and would step in if they saw incidents of electrocution (or indeed shocks) in commercial/industrial installations. There are instances where equipment can fail, but by far and away the main reason that a circuit fails a test (after a previous success) is that alterations have been made.

In the domestic field, it is common to have alerations done by family/friends who 'are good at diy stuff' and records are seldom maintained. This also applies to smaller commercial installations (such as your local shop). For this reason, sampling would not be suitable.

In properly maintained non-domestic installations it is unusual to come across diy alterations. The organisations would worry about the impact that accidents (or worse) would have on their reputaions to say nothing of the insurance implications. I don't get why you appear to have an issue with electricians being allowed to apply their experience to decide whether or not to sample.

 

[JohnW2]

The HSE have access to vastly more data than most electricians and would step in if they saw incidents of electrocution (or indeed shocks) in commercial/industrial installations.

They undoubtedly would, but the whole concept of testing electrical installations regularly is to try to minimise (even further) the occurrence of incredibly rare events (electrocutions or severe injuries). I actually rather doubt that there would be an appreciable increase (if any significant increase at all) in deaths and injuries if no inspections were ever undertaken, but we/they nevertheless advocate (or mandate) such inspections, 'just in case' they miught very occasionally prevent a death or injury.

There are instances where equipment can fail, but by far and away the main reason that a circuit fails a test (after a previous success) is that alterations have been made. ... In the domestic field, it is common to have alerations done by family/friends who 'are good at diy stuff' and records are seldom maintained. ... In properly maintained non-domestic installations it is unusual to come across diy alterations.

Yes, you've said all that before, and I understand and accept it. However, as I've said, the appearance of spontaneous faults in the absence of any work (DIY or otherwise) having been done on a circuit is not impossible, even if uncommon - and, again, I am mindful of the fact that we are talking about measures designed to minimise further risks that are already incredibly small.

I don't get why you appear to have an issue with electricians being allowed to apply their experience to decide whether or not to sample.

As I implied in my recent response to eric, I would doubt that many electricians (no matter how experienced) would be equipped to decide whether sampling is appropriate in a particular situation and, if it is, what would be the appropriate size of the sample (or series of samples) (and method of sampling), since those are statistical questions which require statistical, not electrical, expertise.

However, eric raised something else which might possibly be what you have been talking about. As you will have seen, he said that HSE would accept a 'sample EICR' if a series of EICRs over time were each going to look at different samples of circuits in the installation. As I said, if such a system of EICRs was formally planned so as to ensure that every circuit would be tested within a specified period, then that might well be reasonable (and acceptable to third parties). However, as I said, that's really a matter of conducting a 'full' EICR over a period of time, rather than relying on a sample. Is that perhaps what you have been talking about?

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

Where there is an electrician on site inspection and testing can be a continuing process, so over a year he has worked on and so inspected and tested every part of the installation. The records he keeps to show work done is often enough, where it fails is with portable appliances where very fact they move around without a list of the in service electrical equipment plus of course quarantined equipment it would be easy to miss something.

Fixed equipment and installation also needs to be recorded and where I worked there was a stack of paperwork showing where every socket outlet and every distribution board was located plus wiring routes with names like DB1, DB2 etc so it was easy to identify what you were working on.

However with domestic there is often a lack of information as to where everything is, ask a home owner how many sockets are on a ring final and there is often no record, never mind position, they can't even say how many, so a socket which was put in to power a Myson radiator could be now behind a standard radiator with heat reflective sheet now hiding the socket. I say this because I know I have one in my old house.

For this house the installation certificate does not say how many sockets were fitted, although the house complies, I know that as I have a compliance certificate, I have found dead sockets which were neither rewired or removed during the rewire, clearly the electricians doing the work did not find them. If when doing a full rewire electricians miss sockets, then clearly doing an EICR they can also miss items.

If the electrician is given information like number of socket outlets, number of FCU's, number of light fittings then it is reasonable to expect a full report, even with that, finding where cables don't follow safe routes would be near impossible. I have found in a school where a twisted together and taped cable joint was in the middle of a length of trunking, only found as I was suspicious when cable colour changed. Had they used same colour flex I would have likely missed it.

Only when some one dies do we really find out who is considered responsible for errors. The Emma Shaw death report was to many of us an eye opener, many people had made mistakes, plasterers, plumbers, electricians, electricians mates and electrical foreman. The latter got the blame, I would have said the electricians mate should be able to plug in a machine, press a button, and write down the reading. Had he simply written down OL as it seemed the meter showed, it would have resulted in an investigation, however the courts decided he was not trained to the standard required so foreman should not have sent him to do testing.

So in the main we look at reasonable, if that fault existed in a house where an EICR is carried out, would it be reasonable to expect it to be found, answer has to be yes, next question was the person engaged to do the EICR report trained to the required standard, I would hope he has a C&G 2391 if so answer is yes, were there any omissions to instructions or information given to person doing the EICR, i.e. these sockets I have fitted and not tested, and there are 25 sockets in the house etc. If there are omissions then it raises a questions to if it was reasonable for the person inspecting to find the faults. Of course this is it reasonable continues, was it reasonable to expect the solicitor to request information about work carried out and to view covering paperwork, is it reasonable for the solicitor to interpret the results? or should he employ an expert, or should he advise the buyer to get an independent EICR done, I would say to cover himself he should advise to have a second EICR done, was it reasonable to expect the buyers to do this, yes it was.

So for the previous owner to be found responsible for an accident he would have had to have hidden some fault, like the twisted wire joint I found in the school, or not follow safe routes. As to what is a safe route, I found a horizontal cable the hard way, it went around 4 corners, so I did not expect to find it, and cable detector failed to find it. It had been installed during the building of the extension, no paperwork, could have been builder, could have been my father-in-law, likely the latter, as I have since seen work he did in his own house. It would not have been found with an EICR as to if I had been killed what a a court would decide I don't know. Lucky all circuits RCD protected.

 

[scousespark]

They undoubtedly would, but the whole concept of testing electrical installations regularly is to try to minimise (even further) the occurrence of incredibly rare events (electrocutions or severe injuries). I actually rather doubt that there would be an appreciable increase (if any significant increase at all) in deaths and injuries if no inspections were ever undertaken, but we/they nevertheless advocate (or mandate) such inspections, 'just in case' they miught very occasionally prevent a death or injury.
Yes, you've said all that before, and I understand and accept it. However, as I've said, the appearance of spontaneous faults in the absence of any work (DIY or otherwise) having been done on a circuit is not impossible, even if uncommon - and, again, I am mindful of the fact that we are talking about measures designed to minimise further risks that are already incredibly small.
As I implied in my recent response to eric, I would doubt that many electricians (no matter how experienced) would be equipped to decide whether sampling is appropriate in a particular situation and, if it is, what would be the appropriate size of the sample (or series of samples) (and method of sampling), since those are statistical questions which require statistical, not electrical, expertise.

However, eric raised something else which might possibly be what you have been talking about. As you will have seen, he said that HSE would accept a 'sample EICR' if a series of EICRs over time were each going to look at different samples of circuits in the installation. As I said, if such a system of EICRs was formally planned so as to ensure that every circuit would be tested within a specified period, then that might well be reasonable (and acceptable to third parties). However, as I said, that's really a matter of conducting a 'full' EICR over a period of time, rather than relying on a sample. Is that perhaps what you have been talking about?

Kind Regards, John

Just to (hopefully) clarify this, we are not being asked to carry out a statistical analysis to determine what and how much of the installation to sample.
We inspect the installation and examine records of installation work and previous inspections. We then apply our experience to decide whether or not a sample is acceptable.
If we sample and find faults or divergence from the records, we increase the sample size (up to 100%).

Eric has correctly pointed out that a number of consecutive inspections will cover the full installation.

I actually rather doubt that there would be an appreciable increase (if any significant increase at all) in deaths and injuries if no inspections were ever undertaken, but we/they nevertheless advocate (or mandate) such inspections, 'just in case' they miught very occasionally prevent a death or injury.

I'm confused now. After querying whether we have the capability to read records and visually inspect an installation, you now state that (based on your experience) that EICRS in general are of little benefit.