Hmm, it seems the vast majority of Inspections I do have a number of unidentified circuits.  It'd be daft to say it is unverified. What does that even mean? 

It is what you are there to do - identify the circuits, and make sure they are safe for continued use. Tracing those circuits would be part of the Contract, if the Contract says full I&T, then thats what you do, if it says I&T of known circuits, then you do that, the Limitations should be agreed beforehand, and other Operational Limitations shoudl be written down, if a circuit cannot be traced, then it should be marked as FI, and an unsatisfactory report given. Or, totally disconnect it, and wait to see if anything doesnt work over the next few weeks(of course, this would have to be agreed with the Client). 

Hmm, it seems the vast majority of Inspections I do have a number of unidentified circuits.  It'd be daft to say it is unverified. What does that even mean? 

It is what you are there to do - identify the circuits, and make sure they are safe for continued use. Tracing those circuits would be part of the Contract, if the Contract says full I&T, then thats what you do, if it says I&T of known circuits, then you do that, the Limitations should be agreed beforehand, and other Operational Limitations shoudl be written down, if a circuit cannot be traced, then it should be marked as FI, and an unsatisfactory report given. Or, totally disconnect it, and wait to see if anything doesnt work over the next few weeks(of course, this would have to be agreed with the Client). 

Thank you for the reply that opinion goes with my own thoughts I thought It seems a strange approach that was been made as I've always worked with the belief that you should attempt to trace the circuit and if it cannot be found then it should be put down as an FI obviously depending on the size of the installation it's not often that a circuit cannot be found. 

Sam Ayre said:

and if it cannot be found then it should be put down as an FI

Are we sure that's the purpose of FI? See my post of yesterday discussing an alternative point of view on use of FI, and the statement in Note 9 of EICR form. Summing up, I guess you're saying an installation is potentially unsafe or not fit for continued use because you couldn't find something (a 'LIM' in some people's view)?

Correct me if I am misunderstanding but would that mean that any circuit that we've been unable to identify we would class only as a limitation as from what I can gather from your previous discussions an FI should be used on a known circuit which has a potential to show a C1 or C2 if further investigation is carried out. However surely if where unable to identify a circuit this still creates the chance of a C1 or a C2? 

Sam Ayre said:

However surely if where unable to identify a circuit this still creates the chance of a C1 or a C2? 

How have you risk assessed that? How is it any different to only inspecting and testing a percentage of outlets (or circuits), and one of the socket-outlets you didn't check has a fault shutter mechanism, or perhaps worse has a broken cpc at the rear and therefore is a potential deathtrap?

I could see the point if you had contracted to do 100 % inspection and testing on a simple installation, there might be an issue ... it's definitely a limitation, and you could agree with the person ordering the inspection that it's an FI ... but under those circumstances if the FI is so "urgent" why aren't you looking into it as part of the 100 % testing contract (even if only as a variation) ? At the end of the day, if the circuit is so hard to identify, what's the point of FI? It's an FI that, potentially, could only be resolved by completely disconnecting the circuit.

It's also worth looking at this from the point of view of major infrastructure, or large and complex factory etc. where you won't (can't) testing all of  the installation at each inspection ... and some it perhaps never unless a check is made when the connected safety-related equipment is maintained.