Writing eicr's up and factoring the costs.

[GMES]

As the title suggests, I just wondered what the majority of you guys do regarding paperwork for your eicr work.
@westward10 got me thinking about it with a comment he made in another thread, about spending all week writing up an 800 circuit eicr.
I'm not asking for advice as I already have my system in place as we do lot's of large industrial eicr's anyway but It got me thinking can everyone get it into a quote and get away with it.
Example:
you do a large test on a factory and as Westward said he has spent all week writing it up, now I know a lot of guys use software but it still needs inputting, so lets say you are £40.00 per hour and it genuinley takes you 40 hours to write it up that is £ 1600.00 just in paperwork, can you all justify that to your customers or do some of you not consider your office or home time as an hourly rate,there must be quite a few Electricians out there that are happy with the money they make from the actual testing and then do the paperwork as and when they can at home but don't actually charge for that time.
It will be interesting to see what replies this gets, I don't suppose it is too relevant to the Domestic testing as it is a lot easier to factor in a hour to write up a 2 up 2 down report, but I would still be interested to hear your replies.

 

[Richard Burns]

The price expectation for domestic EICRs is dictated by the drive by boys so it can be hard to even get the job in the first place, therefore the cost of preparing the paperwork is not covered as this would raise the price to where I would not get the jobs.
Effectively EICRs are provided as a necessary service but I do not expect to make much money on them; I would prefer installation work where the paperwork is not quite so arduous, but still excessive.

 

[westward10]

Still at on that EICR, on something that size we tend to divide the total circuits by 100 so on this one which came to 802 then eight days and that allows for the wordy bit. The Report has been subdivided due to its size to smaller Reports so it is easier to read, I tend to do the schedules for one section then do the Cody bit or else it becomes tedious. Luckily the site which is fourteen years old has little alteration and was originally well specified, all singles in steel conduit and few rcbos, joy!
You have to incorporate costings for paperwork on something like this but likewise for smaller jobs or else it isn't cost effective. Domestic which we rarely touch it isn't normally considered but obviously I can knock out a domestic Report pretty quick whereas someone who only does one occasionally is going to be more considered over it.

 

[polo1]

100 circuits/day? How many people testing ( genuine question btw!)?

 

[westward10]

100 circuits/day? How many people testing ( genuine question btw!)?

No that is how we estimate report writing time, so we did 802 circuits, divide by 100 to give eight days for the report.

 

[bigspark17]

Why dont you fill the paperwork out as you go. This is where price per circuit on large installs get tricky.. good thread @GMES..

 

[westward10]

Why dont you fill the paperwork out as you go. This is where price per circuit on large installs get tricky.. good thread @GMES..

That might work on a domestic but not on a big multi building site, is all done rough as it was a tight time frame. If you have experience on big sites price per circuit can be done plus it was all done at night and the only time we had people there was when we did the server room, apart from that we had keys and card swipes to do as we wished.

 

[GMES]

Why dont you fill the paperwork out as you go. This is where price per circuit on large installs get tricky.. good thread @GMES..

One problem with that is if you're in a big old mucky factory your paperwork would be wrecked, we fill out on rough copied certs then do it properly on niceic certs back in the office. Also it would impact on your time actually testing , in industrial there can be a lot of time constraints and you are usually given windows of opportunity to test certain areas so filling out the certs properly would just eat into that time.

 

[bigspark17]

No i dont agree with that filling out the ipad is no more time consuming than writing up a rough cert. a bit of prep and you can have certs noted down ready to fill in the blanks.. as for as @westward10 spending 8 days filling out the report i think thats a joke & id love to price eicr's aggainst that!

 

[westward10]

Which bit is the joke.

 

[Octopus]

Back too the op. I've just agreed to doo an EICR- cost 1/2 day which is about 3 hours on site then 1 hour to document - which is how I told the client it works.... So they don't think they are paying 1/2 day for about 3 hours work

 

[Ian1981]

Which bit is the joke.

Out of interest, do you just do the live zs tests on the circuits you've tested based on a agreed sample percentage.
Do you ignore the R1+R2 way of testing? which really is an initial verification requirement.
I tend to do the R1+R2 testing as I try to avoid live testing except when it's required (ze, rcd etc)

 

[Octopus]

Do you ignore the R1+R2 way of testing? which really is an initial verification requirement.

Tin hat on... when testing an existing and current installation its permissible to do a Zs rather than a R1 + R2 .... this is in the relevant guidance notes...

I wouldn't do this on a new or modified circuit...

 

[Ian1981]

Tin hat on... when testing an existing and current installation its permissible to do a Zs rather than a R1 + R2 .... this is in the relevant guidance notes...

I wouldn't do this on a new or modified circuit...

No I appreciate that R1+R2 is for new work as the cpc continuity must be verified.
On an eicr the installation has been in service for x amount of years and by verifying just zs then you can determine if the protective device will operate in the specified time.
Just wondering if people still do it and just add the ze?
Although ze is not always possible and goes down as a limitation quite often in commercial eicr s

 

[Robert Turnbull]

an 800 circuit EICR, £10 per circuit is reasonable £8k should allow for some time to right up the cert

 

[Pete999]

an 800 circuit EICR, £10 per circuit is reasonable £8k should allow for some time to right up the cert

How much did you quote for the job, no good quiblng about the cost after the event, Robert sorry, that aspect of the job should have been accounted for at the outset.

 

[Robert Turnbull]

How much did you quote for the job, no good quiblng about the cost after the event, Robert sorry, that aspect of the job should have been accounted for at the outset.

Thats what i'm saying at rough guide of £10 per circuit which is fairly reasonable price should be 8k, factored into that price should be the time to right up the reports.

 

[stummish]

I can't comment on industrial EICR's as I've never done any, but if I was offered £10 per circuit for domestic/commercial I'd fall over. Obviously industrial EICR's don't take as long per circuit, but our standard rate is £45 per circuit, I can't see them taking a quarter of the time, or am I mad?

When we quote for an eicr, for a domestic we do all paperwork on site so the customer can see us working, for a commercial we explain that the writing up takes time off site.