Hello,
I recieved an EICR for my Private Rented property from the landord. However, the post code of the address is wrong. Is the EICR still valid? It was done over a year ago, so Is it allowed to be corrected via just changing the post code or do the whole electrics need to be retested/inspected?
Thank you for your reply.
There is no other sheet and I have said in another comment, there is definitley a shower - an electric one too.
I will attach an image of the fuse box. It supposedly has lables, but none of them are correct. For example, the fuse labelled “Water Heater” essentially is the fuse for anything but the water heater - it is the one that keeps tripping and has all the plug sockets in the living/kitchen space, the hob and the washer machine (I'm also unsure if the bedroom plug sockets are off as well as the British Gas engineer turned it off when he was looking at the socket in the bedroom). I have no idea what circuits the lights, oven, kitchen water heater (which by the way was not working when I moved in both the fuse and the water heater itself had broken), bathroom water heater and/or shower are on.
Just for more context: British Gas are coming back on the 18/10/2021 to do their investigation.
as for the faulty plug socket - the plug socket itself is fine it’s the wall around it that is crumbling away meaning it wouldn’t be a job for an electrician anyway. The only solution British Gas could offer would be to move the plug socket. I might add that the electrician the landlords sent round had no intention of doing anything with the plug socket that is unsafe. His solution to my tripping was to switch the 16 to a 32 and leave it at that. No investigation. Nothing.
I think the reason why the landlord doesn’t want British Gas involved because the electrics are dodgy and if they have been wired wrong, the property would fail inspection. This could lead to it being condemned and then that’s not just my flat that is no longer usable but the whole building.
the other thing that concerns me is the sheet says there has not been alterations to the electrics within 25 years, but the flats I live in were originally a house, which has been converted into 4 apartments. So I am assuming they must have been altered to some degree in order to convert the house? My flat is also in the attic.
Day567:
I am moving next week but the problem is the tenancy agreement and dodgy landlords trying to suggest I am making up problems. I followed advice from shelter and the electrician they used to do the EICR did not come up as being able to do inspections on the electrical comptetent person checker (https://www.electricalcompetentperson.co.uk/Search). Concerned, I told them I would rather stick to the British Gas for the electrics. They told me I was being inappropriate for this and then the electrician rang me up, shouting at me and telling me I made him uncomfortable for wanting to check his qualifications - he even called me a 'pain in the ***' despite me being well in my rights to check these things.
I am just trying to make sure the flat is safe. I have had nothing but problems from these landlords and I only wanted to leave them after they left me several days with a hob that would not turn off, and that was the final straw. Bare in mind, its a month later and the replacement hob still does not work either as the back two rings will not turn on at all. The day I moved in the hot water tank had gone in the kitchen (Clearly not been checked in between swapping tenants), took them 28 days to fix it. Similarly, the washer machine/dryer had stopped getting hot (again not checked in between tenants) and was filled with mould in the door seal, tray - everywhere. Cupboards are falling apart, wooden flooring coming disconnected - some pieces even move if you stand on them, carpet is thread bare, drains are blocked (saw a centipede crawl out my bathroom sink the other day), fire door is not functional - the list goes on. They refuse to fix any of it. They also kept violating my rights and sending their handyman round to eventually fix some things without warning. They even gave him a key so he could just walk in!
Then they wonder why I want to leave and keep trying to spin things and imply I have somehow conjured these problems up because I am 'unhappy'. It took them weeks to finally give me a number to call over my electrics. Weeks!
The electrician probably wants to relook at his ability to carry out inspections or he’s on course to end up in court. Basically both the landlord and the electrician have failed badly on what’s required from them. To produce a satisfactory EICR without even looking is plainly crazy for the little money paid I really can’t understand the logic here.
Sadly I suspect there are quite a lot of properties a bit like this at the less scrupulous end of the market. If there were not we would not need regulations / legislation.
The electrics are a small part of a bigger picture here. The socket coming undone is not really an electrical matter, more of a joinery/ general builder issue though it needs doing with some thought not to screw through the cables ;-)
However the mis labelled breakers are exactly the sort of thing that should get picked up/ corrected at inspection time, and it should be an easy job for a competent sparks- it is no more complex that turning each breaker off in turn and noting what stops working, and correcting the labels to match. I'd like to think that the 6A ones are lights and the others are various higher power things, but given what you say, you never know.
There is no RCD or SPD at all, so I am not sure how that was ever tested. And yet 4.10, 4.18 4.19 etc are ‘pass’
Should be “fail” and then some debate about C3 - improvement recommended or C2 potential danger that depends on other factors.
Given the absence of an RCD, that tripping you mentioned can only be a gross overload, so perhaps the cooker or shower shares one breaker with the sockets, and it all stops when fully loaded up.
In any case, not good.
Basically apart from the missing stetson and horse this inspection has a slight ‘cowboy’ appearance. I hope the inspection was reassuringly cheap.
It is not at all unreasonable to expect your sparks to have some qualifications, and to be quite candid about what level that is, or not. Now there are many levels of city and guilds certificates for various things, and the exact course details have changed over the years.
For this reason an absence of one or the other is not necessarily a mark of total competence - but there should be no embarrassment in asking what education/training and when…
If anything to inspect well requires a rather higher level of understanding than just installation, as the inspector has to understand whatever is there already, regardless of complexity not just blindly follow the makers instructions, which are normally lost come inspection time.
(Just personally I have to say that, as I too would be seen incompetent by some more modern paper trail measures ;-) not being a member of any self certification scheme nor a holder of the latest 18th regs exam, as for the day job it is not actually needed . )
Mike.
This grottiness seems to be exactly what ESSPRC 2020 were intended to improve.
If you are concerned about the safety of future tenants, contact the local authority, which has powers of enforcement. On the face of it, a landlord simply needs a “satisfactory” EICR, but in this case, whatever is written on the paper is so wide of the mark that I would hope that the LA will take action.
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