Videos of EICRs on Youtube

Nick Bennett: 
Realistically I would suggest that this needs to be addressed via people being assessed specifically for inspection.

Sounds like at least the practical part of C&G 2394/5.

Nah, that is nothing like a real installation, far too easy.

I have a lovely EIC here today, here are a few points:

1.5 cable, installation method 101, Earth size 1.5mm2

Radial circuit 2.5 method 101, Earth 2.5

PME, Earth electrode N/A, but ticked as inspected!

SELV and PELV inspected (none present)

Double or reinforced insulation inspected (none present)

Electrical separation inspected (none present)

Warning notice present where devices do not have a single point of isolation (none present and no known way they could be)

Warning notice of different colours of insulation (New install!)

Another 20 meaningless ticks.

Any comments, this one is simple and small and he charged £6000.

Chris Pearson: 
 

Nick Bennett: 
Realistically I would suggest that this needs to be addressed via people being assessed specifically for inspection.

Sounds like at least the practical part of C&G 2394/5.

I would agree to a extent although it's difficult to show case all the weird and wonderful things you can come across in the real world, within a booth at a test centre. 

As an opposite to start to correct this problem, I suggest that “Inspectors” should now have to have Honours Degrees and be Chartered members of the IET, and possibly PhDs in electrical engineering of course, as well. At least even the least qualified of them will have some small ability to think slightly, and possibly to spell too as this is a requirement to write a thesis!    

Hmm. Now we need to revisit the cost benefit analysis to see if any inspection at all is worthwhile,  or at least to look at the effect of extending  the inspection interval, perhaps to 20 or 50 years, as you will be looking at £100 plus per hour. 

Nation wide, it may be better for the overall economy not to inspect 10 million properties per year, and to accept a few tens of avoidable fatalities a year at an average cost of perhaps a million pounds each.

Mike. 

(who would not quite meet that set of criteria, not being IET member ?. But you don't want folk like me inspecting, you get a small book not a report. )

Now! Now! Mike, we can't have the emperor's new clothes being exposed like that, hundreds of ‘inspectors’ would be out of work overnight and home/business insurance premiums would crash!

That's the trouble with things like this, what begins as a good common sense idea grows and veers towards  becoming a meaningless and very expensive empire - just look at nonsense such as the ‘Mindfulness’ industry, not to mention Elf & Savdy. Who knew 30-odd years ago that we would end up having to buy and wear so much PPE that we would become too encumbered to carry out our work safely?

Seriously though, I reckon that there is a valid reason or two to leave stuff well alone for longer periods. The number of faults I have been called out to post-'inspection' where something like a cable has snapped out of the back of a light switch, or a socket outlet begins to trip because someone has ‘oversampled’ his visuals on a sockets circuit and a fixing screw has pinched a live conductor. Then we get wandering cpcs inside consumer units after they have been disconnected/reconnected but improperly.

mapj1: 
Nation wide, it may be better for the overall economy not to inspect 10 million properties per year, and to accept a few tens of avoidable fatalities a year at an average cost of perhaps a million pounds each.

Or to let tens of people die of covid each day. AFAIK, most deaths are electricians rather than residents, and that is probably in industrial premises. So the price per life saved could easily be £10M.

In medicine, there is NNT, numbers headed to treat to save one life. How many properties have to be inspected to save one life?

I do wonder when everything has become RCD'd, RCBO'd, AFDD'd and SPD'd to high heaven, folk will still wonder why fatalities occur! What next? Steel conduit and steel accessories only? A ban on all 230V outdoor appliances?

Maybe the only option left will be 12V all round. That is of course, if anything is left which is still capable of generating enough juice for everybody.

davezawadi (David Stone): 
I suggest that “Inspectors” should now have to have Honours Degrees and be Chartered members of the IET, and possibly PhDs in electrical engineering of course, as well. At least even the least qualified of them will have some small ability to think slightly, and possibly to spell too as this is a requirement to write a thesis!

Inspector and testers actually need relevant qualifications and experience.

 

Maybe the only option left will be 12V all round. 

With much bigger cables, bigger sockets and plugs, higher currents, greater I sqd. R heating issues at bad joints, fires in homes.

Z.

Sparkingchip: 
 

davezawadi (David Stone): 
I suggest that “Inspectors” should now have to have Honours Degrees and be Chartered members of the IET, and possibly PhDs in electrical engineering of course, as well. At least even the least qualified of them will have some small ability to think slightly, and possibly to spell too as this is a requirement to write a thesis!

 

Inspector and testers actually need relevant qualifications and experience.

And that, I fear, is exactly where we came in , and can agree that at the moment folk meeting that simple sounding requirement are actually pretty rare in some quarters. Maybe we should lengthen the interval but up the inspector requirements. (or have a low level qualification for the sort of survey a non-electrical type can do.)

M