Electrical Installation Condition Reports - EICR
Most commercial and industrial installations will as some time require an Electrical Installation Condition Report commonly referred to as an EICR depending on their age and intended usage. Intervals between reports can typically be 3 - 5 years. Insurers often insist on the EICR being up to date to comply with policy requirements.
Anyone who is deemed to be "a competent person" can undertake the EICR, however its worth checking the credentials of the person undertaking the work is some detail. If there were to be a problem on a commercial installation which resulted in litigation, would the courts consider an NICEIC Domestic Installer to have the necessary "competency" to work on and report on a commercial installation ? Unlikely, as they have only been assessed by an industry regulator to have demonstrated "competency" in domestic installations. Most likely the electrician involved would been the one shouldering the blame in such situations.
For commercial and industrial EICR's , NICEIC Approved Contractors would be an appropriate choice. Not only have they demonstrated "competency" in all aspects of electrical engineering both domestic and commercial, they are also inspected on a yearly basis by the NICEIC to ensure compliance. The Domestic Installed on the other hand is only assessed on domestic installations every few years.
We recently completed an EICR for a commercial client at Kemble airfield. The installation dated back to the RAF days and had many subsequent additions. There was evidence that previous reports and works had been undertaken by a local domestic installer.
After 5 days of extensive testing including a percentage of visual inspections, it became abundantly clear that the recent work carried out by the local domestic installer was well below acceptable standards and that previous reports had not been carried out to anywhere near enough detail to ensure the installation was safe and fit for purpose.
Here is great example picked up in the visual inspection of the main switch fuse. Apart from the age, possible use of asbestos and suitability of this type of fuse the most worrying aspect was the rewiring of one fuse with two pieces of fuse wire. Without knowing the gauge of wire used its impossible to determine what the characteristics would be , but judging by the evidence of overheating its fair to say this has been running near to breaking point for some time.