Am I qualified to carry out an EICR?

Just a note regarding the wiring regs, do you hold the latest 18th Edition qualification?

Owning the book isn't enough to be classed as competent in most peoples eyes, you need to at least complete the 18th Edition exam (C&G or EAL). This isn't expensive, and you can either do a course to get up to speed, or if you're confident you can make your way around the regs, you could just do the exam, but this is fairly important. Everyone working in the industry has to keep up with their qualifications for regs updates.

" This isn't expensive, and you can either do a course to get up to speed, or if you're confident you can make your way around the regs, you could just do the exam "


You seem quite confident about this. Perhaps you would be able to recommend an exam centre where I can just sit the exam without having to sit the whole course?

Legh

" You seem quite confident about this. Perhaps you would be able to recommend an exam centre where I can just sit the exam without having to sit the whole course? "


Agreed, not impossible but you might have a better chance of looking in a haystack for that needle you lost

Legally you are quite right, you can do your own EICRs, as can almost anyone who is competent with the up to date regs. However, before you rush off in great enthusiasm,  you do need to realise what you are liable for if you miss something important - there are plenty of horror stories on these threads of inspectors that either missed something or found things that are not really an issue resulting in loads of nugatory works. 

You would be wiser to try a dummy run where you do it all 'as if'' and then get someone else to cross check it, more like I look at my car before the MOT, but do not test it myself (it rarely fails...).

There are whole city and guilds courses for inspection and testing, and the consensus is that it is 'hard', and without meeting you we have no Idea how you would fare.

You do however have the advantage of knowing the property and history - a large part of the problems arise from someone rocking up to a strange building and making all the wrong assumptions about what is there and how it works. You can always ask on here ' I have found XYZ what should I do ?' to which you will receive several slightly conflicting opinions.

Regards Mike.

I did the 16th course as ten weeks of evening classes at Kidderminster college, then I went to NAPIT at Mansfield and did the 17th in one day, then back again for another day to do the 17th update.


So when I tried to book the 18th at NAPIT in Bristol I was told I had to do the full three day course as my two previous courses had been one day update courses.

Which is a silly thing to insist upon  - it is quite possible that you learn far more from the job you are doing in the intervening years, and continuously keeping yourself up to date along side your colleagues as part of that, rather than from the course.

I'd argue that it ought to be possible to sit and fail or pass the exam on its own if you wish - how do they know what you already know ? (With another exam, perhaps?)

I would agree that folk whose decades of experience are only the same year repeated tens of times, or who only ever fit stuff to other people's instructions may need to "return to college" as it were for the design skills part of it. But it seem silly to clutter that course up with folk who may not need to be there, and it makes  less time available for those that really do need some attention.

After all you can take your driving test without prior lessons from anyone official, (and you may fail but that is not the point - it is permitted) I'd suggest the same sort of thinking should apply.

M.

You have the 2391 box ticked, which must be more than a significant proportion of inspectors do.


I agree that you need to get up to speed with 18th Edn. I started with 17th and because the structure didn't change much, it was easy enough to find the right bit to answer exam questions. However, what you also need to know is where there have been significant changes such as non-combustible consumer units and the requirements for RCD protection, e.g. domestic lighting circuits.


If you join in here, that will help to get you up to speed, but not necessarily within the next 9 days.

Thank you for all your replies.


I have decided on this occasion to go to a registered sparky.


I have enough work to do myself and the indemnity element as a land lord is important to me,


Thanks again guys