The electrician’s mistake was signing up with an online work agency like Myconstructor and agreeing to work for low rates, he could possibly do an EICR in a flat for less than £90 if it has gas heating and only two or three electrical circuits.


If he had cracked on he could have completed the report in three or four hours, but writing the report up for this flat would take far longer that anticipated.


Had I inspected and tested this flat it would be classed as unsatisfactory and I would state it needs further inspection and testing code FI because fault finding and any remedial work required is not part of the job of preparing an EICR.


We don’t know why it why an EICR was being prepared, if it was because the flat has just been purchased and the new owner wants to make sure the electrical installation is safe to use then the outcome is sort of to be expected.


However if this flat is being rented out and is occupied by tenants and they have been using the installation in this condition it a disgrace and it is just the sort of issue that the landlords EICRs are intended to pick up.


It now needs an electrician to go in on a decent hourly rate to diagnose the faults and rectify them, then when the installation is back in its original condition another EICR can be prepared and upgrades such as replacing the consumer unit can be considered.


Until those socket circuits are back on an RCD without it tripping there is no point in trying to replace the consumer unit and personally I would test the RCD that is already in the consumer unit as it won’t surprise me if there’s nothing wrong with it.


This could have all gone a lot better if the customer had said to the electrician “I want the electrical installation checked out, I know there’s a problem because the RCD doesn’t trip when I press the test button. So can you come and sort the problems out then prepare an EICR?” rather than going online looking for the cheapest price for an EICR.


Any electrician lifting the cover on that consumer unit and looking at that RCD and MCBs should think to themselves “Here we go again, another crock of ####”.


Jobs like this are just time wasting and not a way to earn a living.

Or to put it another way, an electrician doing an EICR should never find a consumer unit in that condition, it is only like that because of other people’s failings.

Like I said on various similar threads, this is just more sauce for the goose. It is not really the electricians fault. It is market driven, so you get what you pay for. What was provided was fair for £99. If the market decides that is what it is worth then the expenditure into the process by the electrician will match it. It is simple economics.


In a parallel universe somewhere there is likely a "My Consultant Uber" where the punter is similarly cheesed off that the advice he received for £99 was one sentence and not a particularly polite one at that.


Shop at "My Bolster" and get lump hammered.

If you go back to the schedule of test results every circuit that did get tested, including the socket circuits have perfect insulation test results.


But the RCD has been taken out of the circuit, so it would be really interesting to read the observations recorded on the EICR.


Maybe the RCD is faulty, but I suspect that it could not be reset after tripping because of a fault that has not been cleared. Whatever the problem was it should have been fixed and not left like that.

It would complete the mental picture I have in my head.