EICR Inspection Explained by David Gilbert at SCV Electrical
David Gilbert conducts a preliminary visual inspection, several issues were noted at the property: outdated and potentially non-compliant electrical installations, cracked and heat-damaged sockets, damp that could damage wiring, an insecure shower switch, and a modern but uncertified consumer unit.
Video Transcript
Hello, so now I am doing a short visual inspection and I thought we’d do a little walk around. I haven’t started doing any testing yet, I’ve just been making a few notes on my laptop because I will write the report up as we carry it out.
My initial thoughts on this property – it’s very dated looking, this installation. You can see how old these sockets are. The heating controls on the wall here, potentially looking at it, it’s been cut off so we need to check that. There is damp here and we could have damp in the walls that could potentially damage the wiring.
There’s a cracked socket outlet here and there is heat damage here to this socket outlet. I think in the grand scheme of things, a change of ownership is happening and that’s why this report is being produced but I suspect this place will get fully refurbished.
Damaged Electrical Sockets
So damaged old electrical accessories would likely be replaced anyway. We’ve got lighting in here that is extremely dated and probably non compliant because I believe this ceiling looks to me like it’s actually below 2.25 meters and that would mean these fittings would be required to be waterproof, which they definitely are not.
This shower switch isn’t securely fitted. The consumer unit itself, which is in here, is pretty modern. There wasn’t any paperwork with this property in terms of price, you know, certificate for replacing that consumer unit so I suspect it may have just been replaced without paperwork because it looks to me like a lot of these sockets and switches and such and such have not been open for donkey’s years.
EICR Inspection Fail
That’s a fail straight away – obviously that socket is missing that. And also we’ve got the service head here, which I’m not too sure what’s going on there. I don’t really want to start pulling that tape off in case the whole thing falls apart. But it looks to me like we’re going to have to get UK power networks out to probably replace that. Ideally, they should hopefully do that free of charge.
Let’s have a little look upstairs, which I don’t think is as bad. I think if we do find more problems it will be with the wiring. You often find with older properties that they’ve had work done to them several times and it can be a bit of a mishmash of good and bad.
Consumer Unit Inspection
So there doesn’t really look to be any dodgy modifications or anything. Looking at it, as I say, I know that the consumer unit has been replaced. If you change a consumer unit, you should really check if the installation is safe to do so prior to doing that and certify it and I do not believe that has happened. I think that the board consumer unit has just been changed.
We will find out because we might find more defects. Obviously, I’ve noted a few visual defects that would fail it, but they’re easy to fix. Hopefully we won’t find too much more wrong with it.
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