I have decided to move house and rent it out, I've just had an EICR report done by a local company and they've come back with a report I'd like advice on.
I'm not sure if anyone in here can help me decipher the report, or if it would be a case of getting another electrician out to re-do the test.
I've attached the full report but the major issues are:
C1 - No main earth
C2 - No bonding on gas
C2 - RCD has IP breach
C2 - Main tails undersized
C2 - DB has IP breach
I am a complete noob and have literally no idea about what any of this means, can anyone break it down in plain English and let me know if they are the correct codes and if £780 to do the repairs sounds accurate?
Many many thanks, James.
[automerge]1599743852[/automerge]
Also just to add to this, it only took the guy about half an hour to do the report, it feels like he did it as quickly as possible and left but I might just be feeling a bit devastated about paying a grand for things I didn't even know needed doing.
Have lived here for 3 years now with no issue so it's a bit hard to take, but take it I will if it's all above board.
Others have already given good advice.
My only addition would be that in his time, there is no way he could have done adequate testing on the circuits to ensure that there are no problems. This smacks of a report done in order to obtain new work. Unfortunately the report is no longer attached, would love to see it (with identifying info removed).
I would suggest that he did not in any sense 'complete' an EICR, so charging for one is unreasonable. If he could see that it was going to fail and said there's no point continuing, then charged only for his time that might be a different matter.
I did a 1 bedroom flat today that was old but nearly perfect in terms of wiring, tests, etc - and that still took me well over 3 hours.
In your case if he hasn't done full tests on the ring circuit (sockets) for example, then he can't possibly quote to 'fix' everything - there may be issues with the sockets that would come to light while they were doing a board change - which would then suddenly be 'extras'.
At the very least you should expect an exact list of the work to be completed so you know what you are paying for, but personally I think it might be throwing good money after bad at this case.
Having said that, looking at the installation pictures there are probably good arguments for upgrading your fuse board. It must be now well over 30 years old and if issues start to occur while you have tenants in there may be additional costs with call outs or just annoying phone calls from the tenants when all their lights go out at 10pm.
Obviously hard to judge from 2 pictures, but I'd think that with shopping around it may be possible to get the board replaced AND an EICR completed for less than you would end up paying the first guy in total, even if it was a fixed price. Personally, I'd not want to encourage him though in any case.
Is he a member of one of the schemes? (NICEIC contractor or similar)? In which case it may be worth contacting them to raise it - it might lead to an uncomfortable question at his next assessment at the very least...