Condition report for a homeEICR, owner-occupied
The standard survey of a house or flat. Usually needed before selling, after buying an older property, when a lender or insurer asks, or when something has started tripping and nobody knows why.
Find out what condition your electrics are actually in.
We inspect and test the wiring, boards and circuits in homes, workplaces and rented property, then issue a report that says plainly what is safe, what needs work, and how urgent it is.
Covered by a standard survey
- Consumer unit and distribution boards
- Final circuits, cabling and connections
- Earthing and protective bonding
- RCD and circuit breaker operation
- Sockets, switches and light fittings
- Circuit charts, labelling and records
Larger buildings are usually surveyed on an agreed sample of circuits rather than all at once, so the site can keep working.
C1
Danger present
Someone could be hurt now. We make it safe before leaving site and tell you the same day.
C2
Potentially dangerous
Not live danger today, but a fault or a change of use would make it so. Needs remedial work.
C3
Improvement recommended
Below current standards but not unsafe. Worth doing, and never on its own a reason to fail.
FI
Further investigation
Something we could not settle on site — concealed cabling, or a board we could not safely open.
Every observation in a condition report carries one of these four codes. An installation is reported unsatisfactory if anything at all is coded C1, C2 or FI.
What an electrical survey involves
An electrical survey is a formal assessment of an existing installation against the current wiring regulations, BS 7671. It has two halves. The first is inspection: an engineer opens boards and accessories and looks for damage, overheating, poor workmanship, missing protection, unsuitable equipment and deterioration from age or damp. The second is testing, where instruments are used to measure whether the installation actually performs as it should — because a great deal of what makes wiring safe is invisible.
Some of those tests need the circuits switched off, so we agree isolation windows in advance. Others are done with the supply on. Between them they establish that protective conductors are continuous, that insulation has not broken down, that polarity is correct throughout, that a fault would clear quickly enough to prevent electric shock, and that RCDs trip inside their permitted times.
What you receive at the end is not a pass sticker. It is an Electrical Installation Condition Report: a schedule of every circuit surveyed, the measured results for each, a coded list of anything found wanting, an overall assessment of satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and a recommended date for the next survey. It is written to be handed to a tenant, a buyer, an insurer, a local authority or an incoming contractor without further explanation.
Where an installation has no existing records — common in older commercial premises and in houses extended over several decades — the survey also produces the drawings and circuit charts that should have been there all along. That is often the most useful part of it.
Typical measurements taken
≥ 1.0 MΩ
Insulation resistance, tested at 500 V d.c. on a standard 230 V circuit
≤ 40 ms
Trip time for a 30 mA RCD at five times its rated residual current
Zs
Earth fault loop impedance, compared against the maximum permitted for the protective device on that circuit
R1 + R2
Continuity of line and protective conductors, end to end on every circuit surveyed
Ipf
Prospective fault current at the origin, to confirm devices can safely break it
Types of survey we carry out
Fixed wire testingCommercial and industrial
Periodic inspection and testing of the distribution system in offices, shops, warehouses and light industrial units. Phased across a sampling programme and scheduled around your operating hours, including nights and weekends.
Rented property certificateEngland, private rented sector
The five-yearly report landlords in England must hold. We issue it in the format councils expect, with the remedial work quoted separately so you can see what is legally required and what is optional.
Thermal imaging surveyLive, no isolation needed
Boards and switchgear photographed under normal load with a thermal camera. Loose terminations, overloaded phases and failing devices run hot long before they fail, so this finds problems without shutting anything down.
Capacity and load surveyBefore you add load
Metered over a working week to establish real demand and spare capacity. Worth doing before committing to EV charge points, a heat pump, kitchen equipment or new plant.
Pre-purchase and pre-lease surveyFor buyers and incoming tenants
A survey written for someone deciding whether to take a building on, with remedial costs estimated so the findings can be used in a negotiation rather than filed after one.
How a survey runs
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Scope and access
We agree what is being surveyed, how much of it will be sampled, and when circuits can be switched off. For occupied buildings this is most of the planning.
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Inspection
Boards, accessories and accessible cabling are opened and examined. Nothing needs to be turned off for this stage, and it accounts for a good share of what we find.
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Testing with circuits isolated
Continuity, insulation resistance and polarity, circuit by circuit, during the agreed isolation window. Circuits go back on as each one is finished.
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Testing with the supply on
Earth fault loop impedance and RCD trip times measured live, confirming a fault would be cleared fast enough to protect anyone touching it.
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Report and debrief
You get the report within three working days, along with a short call to talk through anything coded C1, C2 or FI and what it would take to clear it. Anything dangerous is dealt with on the day, not held back for the report.
How often an installation should be surveyed
| Installation | Interval |
|---|---|
| Owner-occupied home | 10 years |
| Rented home in England | 5 years |
| Offices, shops and commercial premises | 5 years |
| Industrial units | 3 years |
| Places of public entertainment | 3 years |
| Caravan and camping park supplies | 1 year |
| Swimming pools | 1 year |
| Construction sites | 3 months |
Request a survey
Call or email and we will quote a fixed price. It helps if you can tell us the building type and rough floor area, the number of distribution boards if you know it, whether you hold any previous report, and when circuits could be switched off.
Surveys are booked two to three weeks out as a rule. If you have a completion date, a tenancy start or a certificate about to expire, say so and we will work to it.
- requests@electricalsurveyinstitute.org
- Office hours
- Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm
- Out of hours surveys
- Evenings and weekends by arrangement