EICR help!!

[Dannydigger]

Hi Guys,

need a a bit of advice. I was carrying out an EICR yesterday and when I came to test CU the fuse ways (12 of them) only had 5 of them labelled. The others were blank so I had no idea of what circuit the mcb's belong to. I tested IR on all circuits and all came back fine.

how do I record this on my EICR, do I leave the test sheet out and advise unable to carry out tests or is there another solution?

many thanks

dan

 

[Andy78]

I reckon it should take you about 10 or 15 minutes to identify 5 circuits.

 

[HappyHippyDad]

Hi Guys,

need a a bit of advice. I was carrying out an EICR yesterday and when I came to test CU the fuse ways (12 of them) only had 5 of them labelled. The others were blank so I had no idea of what circuit the mcb's belong to. I tested IR on all circuits and all came back fine.

how do I record this on my EICR, do I leave the test sheet out and advise unable to carry out tests or is there another solution?

many thanks

dan

It's quite common for CU's to be labeled incorrectly. I class working out what each is supplying as part of the EICR as you kind of need to know in order to test properly. You may come across 1 or 2 circuits which are sometimes impossible to identify and then I would just test IR and mark as unidentified, however I'm sure out of those 5 you could identify most of them with a little detective work

 

[Dannydigger]

H guys

I would normally agree with you but it was ha early impossible. 12 mcbs 7x32a 2x20a 2x6a and 1x40a

i couldn't for the life of me find where the others were, I did as you said and tested ir and marked as u identified.

can I issue the cert with them marked like that?

thanks again

 

[Octopus]

Hum.... I would say its YOUR responsibility, within the cost allowed for the job, to do it properly - and this includes identifying un labelled circuits.

How were you planning to proceed? What do you normally do?

AND more importantly, do you always "trust" what the labels say?

 

[Andy78]

H guys

I would normally agree with you but it was ha early impossible. 12 mcbs 7x32a 2x20a 2x6a and 1x40a

i couldn't for the life of me find where the others were, I did as you said and tested ir and marked as u identified.

can I issue the cert with them marked like that?

thanks again

That's up to you and your agreement with the customer regards the scope of testing and limitations you previously agreed before starting the test.
I wouldn't issue it like that, just as I wouldn't IR test circuits that I had no idea where they went. How did you make the circuits suitable and safe for IR testing out of interest ?

 

[Dannydigger]

I did advise te customer about them not being labelled and that I couldn't identify some of them. She was fine with it.

the house is empty and no LV lighting etc in there. What baffled me was there wasn't a great d Al of electrics in the place and one MCB I identified went to 1 socket in the hall (radial)

thats what hat I was up against

 

[Octopus]

H guys

I would normally agree with you but it was ha early impossible. 12 mcbs 7x32a 2x20a 2x6a and 1x40a

i couldn't for the life of me find where the others were, I did as you said and tested ir and marked as u identified.

can I issue the cert with them marked like that?

thanks again

Hum... so back to basics - 12 circuits - how long did you allow for the EICR? and how long were you onsite?

 

[Parker27]

for commercial premises, I get the customer to send a photo of the c/u before I start, this way problems like this are identified at the beginning.
I would discuss with customer and see what they want to do, you might be able to list them as operational limitations.

 

[Dannydigger]

Thanks Parker,

i spoke to to them last night and they were happy for it to be put down as inidentified

 

[Pete999]

I reckon it should take you about 10 or 15 minutes to identify 5 circuits.

What Andy said

 

[Andy78]

Should an experienced and qualified professional tester be persuading the customer to agree to half a job when it turns out he can't perform the testing to an adequate standard ? Or should he be calling on his knowledge and experience along with the site pre-assessment to allow enough time to complete the job in accordance with BS7671 and it's associated guidance ?

 

[SS-2015]

How can you not identify them?
The size of the MCB gives you a good rough starting point as to where you might find the circuits they're supplying.
32a - ring, cooker, outbuilding, shower
20a - more than likely going to be radial sockets
6a - more than likely going to be lights
40a - cooker, shower, outbuilding

whats the point in having an EICR done if you can't check it all properly.
I wouldn't personally be happy doing IR tests on anything if I didn't know where I was sticking my 500v.

I wouldn't care if the customer was happy with it being left like that or not - I wouldn't be. After all they're paying you because they don't know how to conduct the tests themselves. So if you tell her it's fine she will believe you but I don't think it is fine to leave it like that.

I aso aso wouldn't be happy if I was following you - doing work later or fault finding, coming across a nice shiney new date sticker on the CU only to open it up to find a load of unidentified circuits.

 

[Plonker 3]

How can you be sure the circuit tests out fine?

the schedule of tests is there for a reason. There could be switches that werent turned on therefore meaning you haven't done the job correctly.

 

[IrishSpark]

Or should he be calling on his knowledge and experience along with the site pre-assessment to allow enough time to complete the job in accordance with BS7671 and it's associated guidance ?

I get the feeling both knowledge and experience are both things this guy doesn't have going by reading through his posts.

 

[GMES]

Danny one of the problems I see here is you will always get some customers that will just want a clean ticket so will happily agree with whatever you say to get that ticket, it is however your job as a qualified competant tradesman to do the job correctly. If having to stay longer to id all the circuits correctly then that's what you have to do, even if if you have underquoted for this I wouldn't want to leave there not knowing what the circuits were being used for.

 

[Deleted member 9648]

Hi Guys,

need a a bit of advice. I was carrying out an EICR yesterday and when I came to test CU the fuse ways (12 of them) only had 5 of them labelled. The others were blank so I had no idea of what circuit the mcb's belong to. I tested IR on all circuits and all came back fine.

how do I record this on my EICR, do I leave the test sheet out and advise unable to carry out tests or is there another solution?

many thanks

dan

You just turn off an mcb,go round and find out whats gone off....it's hardly rocket science.

 

[yellowvanman]

If you can't find anything when you turn off the MCBs leave them off and tell the owner if something now doesn't work then it'll be one of the unidentified circuits. After a little while return and test whatever has been identified and disconnect the rest!

 

[Flanders]

You should mark any untraced circuits on the report as fi (further investigation) as said leave the circuit turned off and inform the customer . My understanding is if there are any fi codes on the report then it is deemed unsatisfactory, the only way to ensure the installation is safe is to disconnect the circuits you can not identify, if you have radial circuits wih one socket on them then they could of been old storage heater circuits

 

[newtothis]

the house is empty and no LV lighting etc in there. What baffled me was there wasn't a great d Al of electrics in the place and one MCB I identified went to 1 socket in the hall (radial)
thats what hat I was up against

Are you saying there was no appliances therefore, nothing to go off ?
Out of interest, how would one get around this situation ?
Rather than going down the 'unidentified path' ?
Would a fuse-finder be the thing, or carry some kind of appliance, or what ?