EICR results question

[Murdochcat]

I always told sellers not to bother with EICRs

 

[ericmark]

To find the suspect socket, I would simply plug in my loop impedance tester, and one would quickly find at least area of the fault, but although easy for an electrician for a DIY without the loop impedance tester, this would present a problem, so question is with comments made, is he an electrician?

 

[pete01]

To find the suspect socket, I would simply plug in my loop impedance tester, and one would quickly find at least area of the fault, but although easy for an electrician for a DIY without the loop impedance tester, this would present a problem, so question is with comments made, is he an electrician?

On a small ring like this would a loop test reveal much?

 

[ipbr21054]

The electrician did the test and left.
I see the report & see on the quote how long apparently it’s going to take.

I’m keen to look do it myself and to not lay them.

Hence why I ask if there is a toll so when I plug in I know which socket it is without doing all of them.

Then one less job for him.

 

[endecotp]

Hence why I ask if there is a toll so when I plug in I know which socket it is without doing all of them.

There isn't a plug-in device that can help with this.

In principle you can use a multimeter to measure the resistance between earth pins from one socket to the next, but the difficulty is that these resistances are all rather small - multimeters don't have much resolution at those values - and you will probably need long leads. If you have a multimeter and would like to try anyway, let us know and someone will suggest what to do.

 

[ipbr21054]

I have a multimeter but leads are say 1 ft

 

[endecotp]

I have a multimeter but leads are say 1 ft

That sounds unusually short!

 

[morqthana]

Seems excessive time 2/3 hours as there isn't many sockets at all

If there aren't very many, you could have just done it by now.

Even if it really was 2-3 hours work, you could have just done it by now.

 

[ericmark]

One should see the earth loop impedance slowly increase as one moves towards the centre of the ring final, if there is a faster increase this should point to the area of the problem. However, this is the whole idea of having an EICR done, it should highlight the area of the problem, seems rather pointless to simply say there is a problem but I don't know where. That is what he has been paid to find out.

 

[ipbr21054]

That sounds unusually short!

I’m not an electrician so this is why they are short.

 

[ipbr21054]

If there aren't very many, you could have just done it by now.

Even if it really was 2-3 hours work, you could have just done it by now.

I’m not an electrician so I’m asking first is there is such a tool.

 

[ipbr21054]

The ECIR was done.
He sent a report.
Waited ages for a quote.
Got another electrician to look at report quote and do it.

 

[pete01]

If there aren't very many, you could have just done it by now.

Even if it really was 2-3 hours work, you could have just done it by now.

Was gonna say the same.

 

[SimonH2]

Is there a tool i can buy to plug in each socket to advise me which socket it is.

To find the suspect socket, I would simply plug in my loop impedance tester, and one would quickly find at least area of the fault, but although easy for an electrician for a DIY without the loop impedance tester, this would present a problem, so question is with comments made, is he an electrician?

There is another way. I once did this to work out how the house was wired (i.e. where the RFC ran from socket to socket).

To be honest, for a few sockets, quicker to just reterminate them all.

WITH THE POWER OFF, drop the CPC (earth wire) ends at the CU, use a 12V battery and light (e.g, I keep some old car headlight bulbs where one filament has gone for this sort of thing) to put a few amps round the ring. Link L or N to one end as well. You'll find there's now a measurable voltage between the two ends of the CPC. Go round socket by socket, noting the voltage between L or N and Earth - it'll increase from zero at the CU end where you've linked to N or L, and increase at each socket around the ring. At some point you'll find the voltage goes up significantly - and the bad connection will be at this socket of one either side of it in the ring.
You'll also find that the end-end voltage will be lower after you've fixed the fault. You can also calculate the loop resistance if you can accurately measure the test current you are using and the end-end voltage.

When I used this method, it wasn't to find a fault, it was simply to see what order the sockets were round the ring, and get some idea how it was wired before I started changing anything. Of course, being a rewire of an old property, it had some "interesting" cable routes.