A Periodic Inspection or an Electronic Installation Condition Report (EICR), what are they?
The purpose of Periodic Inspection or Electrical Installation Condition Reports is to provide the property owner / management company with a report detailing:
- The current state of the current electrical installations at the location
- To highlight in priority order any non-compliance against the electrical installation’s national safety standards.
What is the reason behind why a periodic inspection, or an electrical installation condition report is needed?
As you will know everything deteriorates over time, this includes electrical installations. It is therefore essential due to the dangerous nature of electricity that your electrical installations are maintained so that:
- Users are not put in harm’s way.
- Your electrical installations continue to remain in a safe condition.
- The risk of down time due to power supply issues is reduced.
When do you need to have performed a periodic inspection or an electrical installation condition report?
As with a lot of things in life these days the answer is not just a simple straight forward one. The periodicity actually depends on the type of the premises. We have broken down the periodicity below for a Periodic inspection or Electrical installation reports to give you clarity:
- For commercial properties it is every 5 years.
- This activity can be approached in one of two ways:
- A total inspection at a 5-year interval.
- A yearly inspection cycle covering 20% of your installation.
- This route means you will reach 100% inspection at the 5-year period.
- One of the major benefits of this approach is you get your installation fault checked yearly. This can help you to avoid larger bills as faults can be addressed before they cause bigger problems.
When I have a periodic inspection or an electrical installation condition report what happens?
Our ConneX Electrical testing engineers inspect your electrical installations and reference them to BS7671 which is the Requirements for electrical installations (IEE wiring regulations). This is electrical installation national safety standard.
The periodic inspection will not only look at all the current situation but also include the following aspects:
- a) Earthing and bonding adequacy.
b) Switchgear and control gear suitability.
c) Equipment serviceability. - d) The type of the wiring system and the condition it is in.
- e) Presence of residual current devices for socket-outlets as they may be used to plug in electrical equipment that is used outdoors.
- f) Identification notices are provided and adequate.
- g) How much deterioration or damage there is to the installation.
- h) What changes have been made to how the premises are being used and how it has or could result in installation deficiencies.
An Electrical installation condition report (EICR) what is it?
The Electrical installation condition report (EICR) is very simply the standardised method for the electrical engineer to make a record of the findings from their inspection of your installation.
Purpose of the EICR:
- The provision of a report to the property owner / manager detailing the situation regarding safety with regard to the electrical installation.
- It will detail the overall condition and will rate it as one of the following two categories:
- Satisfactory: There is no immediate remedial work required to be undertaken.
- Unsatisfactory: The installation is not safe to use without remedial work being carried out
- If your report does class your installation as unsatisfactory you need to reference the section of the report that details ‘’Observations and Recommendations for Actions to be Taken’. This section will detail and areas that are not to BS7671 code. It will also indicate by use of a code how urgent the items are to be addressed. The codes start with 1 as the most urgent and the scale goes to 4.
Next Steps
Here at ConneX Electrical we experts at commercial electrical systems periodic inspections and testing. We are happy to discuss any queries you may have about the inspection of your installation. Please give one of our friendly and helpful staff a call and see how we can be of help.
