It's been 18 months since I had a Contract with a Social Housing provider, so things may have changed - in fact I think the Smoke Detection rules have changed. They used to be exempt from fitting any smoke detection, I beleive they are now expected to comply to 5839 for houses.

Anyway, on the electrical side, the one I worked with followed 7671. When SPDs came in, we had to fit them, no risk assessment etc, just fit them. On EICRs, C3's were given for lighting with no RCD protection, if there were likely to be vulnerable people in the property, RCBOs were fitted for the lighting. A note would be made of the ones without lighting RCDs, and the DB would be changed in due course, or, RCBOs fitted if available for that board.

What did not work was external Contractors doing the 5/3 yearly EICRs. Invariably they were done at the cheapest price possible, subsequently the Staff doing them were paid little and/or expected to do 4 houses a day. Of course, they did not even do a good inspection, never mind adequate testing. We would regularly go to a property that had been passed as satisfactory a week previously that had major safety problems.

One of my first sticks in my mind. New Tenant had moved in, cooker thet they fitted themselves,  wasnt working. The place had had a minor refurb in the previous weeks, EICR etc. The cooker outlet was dead. Strange. I looked at the EICR, good reading on that, no recommendations or notes. I thought the circuit breaker must have failed. It turned out the 6mm cable in the CU was feeding the shower, not the cooker. And there was no shower. There was a bare, unterminated cable in the attic that used to supply a shower. The cable for the cooker was looped up, and covered in tape in the rear of the CU. Clearly they had disconnected the old cable, done the wrong cable,  did no testing, left a live cable in the attic, and left the cooker dead. Yet it had  asatisfactory EICR.  This is where the Electicial Industry needs to sharpen up. I still see rubbish like this, but nothing is ever done to stop these cowboy Companies. Only this week I had an email offering me £50 for each EICR done on a Social Housing Contract. Really, who even takes up these Contracts?

It's been 18 months since I had a Contract with a Social Housing provider, so things may have changed - in fact I think the Smoke Detection rules have changed. They used to be exempt from fitting any smoke detection, I beleive they are now expected to comply to 5839 for houses.

Anyway, on the electrical side, the one I worked with followed 7671. When SPDs came in, we had to fit them, no risk assessment etc, just fit them. On EICRs, C3's were given for lighting with no RCD protection, if there were likely to be vulnerable people in the property, RCBOs were fitted for the lighting. A note would be made of the ones without lighting RCDs, and the DB would be changed in due course, or, RCBOs fitted if available for that board.

What did not work was external Contractors doing the 5/3 yearly EICRs. Invariably they were done at the cheapest price possible, subsequently the Staff doing them were paid little and/or expected to do 4 houses a day. Of course, they did not even do a good inspection, never mind adequate testing. We would regularly go to a property that had been passed as satisfactory a week previously that had major safety problems.

One of my first sticks in my mind. New Tenant had moved in, cooker thet they fitted themselves,  wasnt working. The place had had a minor refurb in the previous weeks, EICR etc. The cooker outlet was dead. Strange. I looked at the EICR, good reading on that, no recommendations or notes. I thought the circuit breaker must have failed. It turned out the 6mm cable in the CU was feeding the shower, not the cooker. And there was no shower. There was a bare, unterminated cable in the attic that used to supply a shower. The cable for the cooker was looped up, and covered in tape in the rear of the CU. Clearly they had disconnected the old cable, done the wrong cable,  did no testing, left a live cable in the attic, and left the cooker dead. Yet it had  asatisfactory EICR.  This is where the Electicial Industry needs to sharpen up. I still see rubbish like this, but nothing is ever done to stop these cowboy Companies. Only this week I had an email offering me £50 for each EICR done on a Social Housing Contract. Really, who even takes up these Contracts?