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Is a QS entitled to sign off an EICR?

Chris Pearson
Open to debate, but I say no.


The whole concept of QS seems to be a creation of NICEIC, but I can see the point of it. If I am employed by DZ Electrical and make a mess of things, the company is vicariously responsible for my errors. I cannot be sued. So it would be in the interests of DZ Electrical to ensure that I am competent to work for them.


However, I suggest that an EICR is personal. The model form in Appendix 6 (page 473) has a declaration, but includes the name and signature of the inspector and tester as well as whoever authorises the report.

651.5 The periodic inspection and testing shall be carried out by one or more skilled persons competent in such work. Skilled person is defined in Part 2. If the identity of the inspector and tester is not disclosed, how may I as the client know that he or she is skilled?


The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 require that A private landlord ... must ... ensure that every electrical installation in the residential premises is inspected and tested at regular intervals by a qualified person and qualified person is defined as a person competent to undertake the inspection and testing required under regulation 3(1) and any further investigative or remedial work in accordance with the electrical safety standards.


If the identity of the inspector and tester is not revealed, how could the landlord possibly ensure that he (or she) is qualified?


So, in my opinion, at the very least for a private landlord's report, the EICR must be signed off by the inspector and tester. I might go further and suggest that the report should include the inspector's qualifications.
  • 0
    Geof


    Part P has nothing directly to do with the Landlords' certificates of the quality of the installation and compliance with the latest edition of BS7671, it is true. However, I was trying to describe how we got to this place, and the ineffectiveness of previous, possibly similar, ideas on regulations other than BS7671. The question of competence is clearly central to all these ideas, yet PartP has been singularly ineffective in improving competence, in fact, it has probably had the opposite effect. I am merely making the point that we do not want to go that way again.
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    I would suggest that anybody who has not done the C&G exam for the current edition of BS 7671 would have a very difficult time demonstrating competence.






    I would suggest that that qualification is totally inadequate for carrying out EICRs competently and highlights the problem exactly.


  • 0
    That is not the qualification for EICRs Geof as you know. It is the first step to show any competence at all. I have suggested that Inspectors should be able to achieve virtually 100% in the 18th exam, after all it is open book and therefore difficult to make any mistakes. I have tried the exam and can look up the answer to every question well inside the 2 hours, one actually needs to know very little except what the words in the question mean, and if you don't know that what do you know about wiring and electricity.
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    davezawadi (David Stone):

    That is not the qualification for EICRs Geof as you know.




    Yes, I know but it was the only one mentioned by Chris in reply to me saying that NO qualifications are required to be allowed to carry out EICRs.


    A person can be fully competent with no qualifications - and also the opposite.


  • 0
    I sign my EICRs twice, once as the inspector and tester and again to authorise it.
  • 0
    There is a further complication - because everyone who installs anything to  '7671 can inspect and test their own works (well I hope they can, though maybe it is not all ...)  it sounds and looks like a job where you go and inspect someone else's work from some years ago might be quite similar.

    However that is not true,  the skill-set required to commission stuff you understand because you put it in yourself, is much reduced. To inspect the work of others is far more like fault finding or driving an unfamiliar vehicle, you need to work out what the designer and installer were thinking at the time, perhaps also know  what version of regs they were working too, and to know if that requires some allowance or not really.

    To get into someone else's head may be quite easy if it is just one domestic ring of sockets plus some basic lighting radial, but beyond that  many may not get so far with all the possible permutations of the heating wiring, let alone follow what is happening on  a big site with nested timers and controls  in an industrial setting.


    Mike.
  • 0
    I might add to what Mike says that when erecting a new installation, an electrician has (or should have) a set of plans to work to.


    The first job on I&T may be to reverse engineer the plans.
  • 0
    Sparkingchip:

    I sign my EICRs twice, once as the inspector and tester and again to authorise it.



    So the EICR I typed up earlier I inspected and tested yesterday and authorised today.
  • 0
    I sign once on the last bit. Inspector Me . Supervisor NA
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    Mike, most domestic EICRs I see exclude heating wiring, the last one I saw excluded HVAC wiring, so I assume the bathroom fan wasn't tested?

    David Stone, do you want examples of shoddy EICRs emailed to you? Bit concerned about what your intentions are WRT the authors and whether there might be comebacks. Have had very threatening phonecalls from "electricians" in the past when questions have been asked. Perhaps a new thread outlining it?

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