Discuss EICR Price and Specification in the Periodic Inspection Reporting & Certification area at ElectriciansForums.net

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T

tennis ball

Hello all,

Just wanted to share an experience from today and see what others thought on this subject.

I managed to acquire some feedback from someone I provided a quote for yesterday - I asked why they had decided on another service and the answer was because they were £80 and I was £155.

The job was an EICR on a 60's (ish) 4 bed house in cardiff.

From my view point an EICR takes a full day to complete with the form writing and I charge a days rate of £155. If I were to charge £80 then this would only allow me roughly half a day and I don't believe you can do the job properly in half a day.

I test 100% of circuits, test resistance of bonding conductors and visually inspect as many accessories as I can fit in but not less than 50% I test every circuit individually for I.R and perform R1+R2 on every circuit.

Just wondering what people's thoughts are on the above and what other's experience is of the market place in terms of an EICR's value and what most other contractors offer.

Cheers,

Daniel
 
I suppose if the customer only wants to pay for half a job, that's their prerogative. I'd agree with you that, for any largish house, it's a full day's work to do it properly.

Do you know why they wanted the EICR done? If it's for their own safety, rather than a paperwork exercise, maybe you need to make it clear to them what they're getting for their money.
 
As above ^
they might as well pee £80 down the drain as if it's not done properly it's a waste of time.
The other guy is either hard up or rushing it
 
I suppose if the customer only wants to pay for half a job, that's their prerogative. I'd agree with you that, for any largish house, it's a full day's work to do it properly.

Do you know why they wanted the EICR done? If it's for their own safety, rather than a paperwork exercise, maybe you need to make it clear to them what they're getting for their money.

Hi yes, its a new house purchase.

I actually offered to carry out the EICR for free after the contractor had done his - as a fact finding mission to find out what I am up against. Couldn't care less who or what company but just want to understand the market place better and learn how to communicate and sell properly so that people can make an informed decision that keeps them safe and makes me more profitable!!

I did state my professional opinion that £80 would not allow enough time to carry out the job properly but maybe this contractor is working 8 hours but just charging a lot less?

Difficult but maybe I should have been more direct and explained that their house may burn down or they could be killed through faulty electrics?
 
As above ^
they might as well pee £80 down the drain as if it's not done properly it's a waste of time.
The other guy is either hard up or rushing it

Totally agree! Whats the point in what is essentially a safety assessment if your just going to rush it? Must find a way to win the day and get the message across before the customer makes a decision next time I feel.
 
Hold hard,i think you called it spot on.Unfortunately the average customer will invariably have no other yardstick to hand other than the price. I think some dilute the inspection to suit the lesser quotes and i do not think its possible to accurately quote without seeing the property,although some give lists of charges in adverts. They CAN be quicker,they CAN be profitable,but they MUST be thorough. I think thats why no one on dragons den is talking about IR's....
 
just had the same thing this week, a bloke got in touch with via someone I know and needed a report on a large 3 bed semi that he is part exchanging on a new house and the people at the other end are asking for a report on his house.

I said without looking that i think it is a days work to do the inspection and fill in the report, the report itself must take an hour to hour and a half?

He said he has a quote for a couple of hours all in so I said good luck pal.

what degrees of sampling can you apply to a job to totally have someone over?

I would expect to test each circuit, the earthing , remove a few points for visual inspection and do the report assuming from the size of the house that there could be 2-3 ring ccts, 2-3 ltg ccts, shower , cooker, immmersion/boiler, smoke alarms, alarm, garage.

Am i out of touch, I generally do commercial work
 
just had the same thing this week, a bloke got in touch with via someone I know and needed a report on a large 3 bed semi that he is part exchanging on a new house and the people at the other end are asking for a report on his house.

I said without looking that i think it is a days work to do the inspection and fill in the report, the report itself must take an hour to hour and a half?

He said he has a quote for a couple of hours all in so I said good luck pal.

what degrees of sampling can you apply to a job to totally have someone over?

I would expect to test each circuit, the earthing , remove a few points for visual inspection and do the report assuming from the size of the house that there could be 2-3 ring ccts, 2-3 ltg ccts, shower , cooker, immmersion/boiler, smoke alarms, alarm, garage.

Am i out of touch, I generally do commercial work

Not true, you are quoting to do the job properly.
 
How can you do it in a few hours though? I don't understand the sampling bit other than it means do a lot less but then you cant give a true report

As I said you are quoting enough time to do a thorough report. I doubt the report will be worth the paper its written on.

When I quote for EICR's I quote a price to do the job properly and my minimum is £125 for a 1 bedroom flat or house. If the client won't pay its not an issue for me
 
Am i out of touch, I generally do commercial work
I wouldn't say so. I normally budget an hour for inspection, half an hour for general characteristics, half an hour per circuit and an hour for the certificate. If someone else feels they can bang out an EICR in a couple of hours, then that's their choice and I don't sit in judgement on them.
At the end of the day, you have to stick with what you're comfortable with.
Also, bear in mind that many customers only want a piece of paper to comply with insurance requirements. They aren't really interested in finding out the true state of their installation, and therefore are solely driven on price and not quality.
If what you are doing makes you feel comfortable, then stick to your guns.
 
Remember an EICR is like buying a TV on the internet as far as Joe Public wants a Panasonic but then gets a Latvo out of Tesco's
You need to suck this type of thing up try not criticise the opposition too much or it will look like sour grapes . When I get people saying you are having a Larf I say no but I will do the job right . Had this with a job from 2 years ago when I was called out before xmas to sort the mess out I did not have to slag off the opposition nope they did that themselves I just stated the facts and now have a lot of credit with the customer
 
hi guys, first post and all that.
i do EICR's daily for my employer, a housing association with 15k plus properties, we correct anything and everything we find wrong, and bring up to the 17th as a minimum.
we do a 10% inspection of accessories, which generally works out as 1 point per circuit, we carry out full testing on every circuit, including IR, r1+r2,Zs, RCD time polarity, the full works( no calculating of Zs or anything else is allowed). any faulty or broken accessories get replaced and all pendants are fitted with standard BC low energy lamps.
for this, including doing the report, we aim for a day, some are quicker some are longer, ie 1 bed against 4 bed etc.
however to bring board up to date or bonding or upgrade shower/cooker circuits due to installation methods etc, or fault finding, we get additional time, and to be fair, we get the time we need.
id say the average house EICR should be do able within 4-6 hours, with writing the report on top, some of us just work quicker than others, and have quicker routines for carrying the testing( this ive noticed before christmas, working with 2 other sparks, my god they were slow and disorganised lol)
obviously if you find something seriously wrong, i stop the testing and advise from there.

as for pricing, a friend of mine only does EICR's and makes a good living, he charges around £18 per circuit, for 2 people
 
I always charge a day rate for conducting EICRs.
On one occasion I dropped my price, because the Local Authority refused to accept my report as I am not a member of a competent person scheme.
Couldn't be asked to force the issue, as the client wanted to rent their property out as soon as, and got someone else in.
Of course the new report was unsatisfactory and a new CU was required along with bonding to the plastic gas mains.
 
id say the average house EICR should be do able within 4-6 hours, with writing the report on top

Is that for one man or two mate.

Welcome to the forum. :)
 
I can generally do an EICR on a 3 bed house in about 3/4 hours on my own. But, I was doing them all day every day for about 6 months and you get into a routine.


The normal charge around here is around £20/25 a circuit depending how many circuits.

Jay
 

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