What the job involves
An EICR is an Electrical Installation Condition Report. It is the written result of a periodic inspection: an electrician examines and tests the fixed wiring of a building and records whether it is safe to carry on using. You will also hear it called fixed-wire testing or a periodic inspection. They are all the same job.
For a commercial building it covers the incoming supply, every distribution board (the commercial equivalent of a fuse box), the circuits feeding lights, sockets and fixed equipment, the earthing and bonding, and the protective devices that should trip when something goes wrong. It does not cover kettles, computers or other equipment that plugs in; that is PAT testing, which we also do.
The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 put a duty on employers and anyone in control of a workplace to keep electrical systems safe, and an EICR is the accepted way of showing you have done that. Landlords of commercial premises usually have the same duty under their lease, and insurers increasingly ask for a current satisfactory report before they will renew.
What we do on the day
Our testing and inspection lead runs this side of the business. He plans each visit with you first: which areas can be isolated and when, where the tills, servers and freezers are, and whether any part of the building needs to be done at night. For a hotel on the Promenade that often means working floor by floor between check-out and check-in. For a shop in St Annes it means an evening. For a warehouse at Fleetwood docks it might be a Saturday when the forklifts are parked.
On site we inspect each board and a sample of every type of accessory, then test the circuits: continuity of the earth path, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance and the operation of RCDs (residual current devices, the sensitive trips that protect people from shock). The sample size follows the guidance for commercial work and is agreed with you beforehand so you know what the report covers.
Anything we find is given a code. C1 is danger present, and we make it safe before we leave. C2 is potentially dangerous. C3 is improvement recommended. FI means something needs further investigation before we can say. One C1 or C2 makes the overall report unsatisfactory, but it also tells you exactly what to fix.
You receive the report within five working days, usually sooner, as a PDF with photographs of anything coded, a schedule of test results for every circuit and a recommended date for the next inspection. We can send a copy straight to your insurer or landlord if you ask.
What it costs
Commercial EICRs start from £195 for a small premises with one board and a handful of circuits, such as a lock-up shop or a single office. From there the price is worked out per board and per circuit, so a three-storey hotel with six boards costs more than a dental practice with two. We give a fixed written quote before the visit. If the report is unsatisfactory, remedial work is quoted separately and you are free to use anyone for it, though most customers ask us because we already know the installation.
Who it’s for
Employers who need to show they are meeting their duty under the Electricity at Work Regulations. Landlords of shops, offices and industrial units, who need a report at the start of a lease and at each renewal. Hotel and guest-house owners in Blackpool, whose insurers and the council’s licensing team expect a current report. Care homes, nurseries and schools, where CQC and Ofsted inspectors ask to see it. Dental and medical practices in Lytham and St Annes. Farms around Garstang, where older installations and damp buildings make regular inspection matter more than almost anywhere.
Inspecting buildings on the Fylde coast
The coast gives us a particular mix. Blackpool’s hotels and guest houses are mostly Victorian, extended many times, and the wiring often tells the story of every owner since the 1960s. We find spare circuits nobody can identify, boards in cupboards behind bars, and bonding missing from the newer plumbing. Seafront premises at Cleveleys and Fleetwood suffer from corrosion in external fittings and in anything near a door that opens onto the front. Units at the docks have heavy machinery loads and older three-phase boards. Farm installations north of Garstang often have long overhead runs and outbuildings that were wired piecemeal. The business parks at Poulton and Thornton are more modern, but tenants change and alterations go unrecorded. We have inspected all of them, and the report you get is written so a non-electrician can understand what matters and what can wait.
