EICR Testing in FleetLandlord and Homeowner Reports,Priced Before You Book

Landlords with a legal duty

Private rented homes in England need a satisfactory report at least every five years and a copy given to tenants. Booking early avoids scrambling between tenancies.

Buyers and sellers

A report before exchange turns vague survey wording like 'electrics appear dated' into a costed, evidenced position you can negotiate with.

Homeowners in older stock

If the property has not been tested in ten years, has a plastic fuse board, or you have inherited someone else's DIY, an EICR is how you find out what you actually own.

Testing follows the inspection and testing requirements of BS 7671 using calibrated instruments: an insulation resistance tester at 500V DC for most domestic circuits, a low-resistance ohmmeter for continuity of protective conductors and ring final circuits, a loop impedance tester for earth fault loop values, and an RCD tester for trip times at half, one and five times rated current.

Ring final circuits get the full three-step continuity test, line, neutral and circuit protective conductor ends measured and cross-connected, which is how broken rings hidden behind years of working sockets get found. Where a circuit cannot be dead-tested safely, live testing is limited and the limitation is recorded on the report rather than glossed over.

Sample sizes and limitations are agreed before starting. Fixed accessories are opened for inspection where accessible; where furniture, boarded lofts or fitted kitchens genuinely prevent access, the report says so explicitly.

Interwar and post-war stock around Fleet frequently still has rubber or lead-sheathed cable in loft spaces, rewireable fuse carriers, and no RCD protection on socket circuits. Insulation resistance readings on rubber cable often sit at the edge of acceptable, which is the point at which partial rewiring becomes the honest recommendation rather than another patch.

1960s and 1970s properties commonly show undersized main protective bonding to gas and water services, missing supplementary bonding in bathrooms, and modified circuits from later extensions. These are usually straightforward, low-cost corrections identified precisely by the report.

Newer estates in Farnborough and Yateley tend to test well but throw up different issues: outdoor sockets and garden lighting added post-completion, loft conversions on spurred circuits, and consumer units where surge protection was omitted.

The inspection itself is the same. What differs is the paperwork trail: landlords need a copy issued to tenants and available for the local authority on request, along with written confirmation that any C1, C2 or FI items have been remedied.

For owner-occupiers there is no legal cycle, but the practical interval is around ten years, or sooner after a flood, a fire, a loft conversion, or buying a property with unknown history. If you are selling, having the report in hand removes an easy point of negotiation from the buyer's side.

An unsatisfactory report is a to-do list, not a condemnation. Most C2 items are small: a missing blanking plate, a damaged accessory, an unprotected buried cable, absent RCD protection on a specific circuit. Many are resolved in a single follow-up visit.

Where the board itself is the limiting factor, a consumer unit replacement often clears several coded items at once and is priced from £650 for a 6-way board. Where cable condition is the limiting factor, a partial or full rewire is the correct answer and will be described as such rather than dressed up as a cheaper fix.

Once remedial work is complete, the relevant certification is issued and, where notifiable, registered through NAPIT. Commercial work is limited to schools; domestic property is the main focus.