Unnecessary EICR work

dastian101

My estate agent recently had an electrician around to do an EICR on the 1 bed flat that I rent out. The quote they have given me seems really high (£2,333)!! I was wondering if anyone in the know could give me some advice regarding whether the works seem unnecessary or not and if necessary whether the quoted costs sound reasonable. Thank you in advance!

Quote given by Electrician:

I visited the property to carry out an EICR. The following remedial work should be carried out:

Install of 16 mm swa cable, undersize mineral insulated cable currently used. To include install

of 63 amp isolator at mains intake area

£1,400

Supply and fit new 18th edition fire rated metal clad dual ccu board to meet current regulations

The existing ccu is of a plastic clad build and not fire rated and there is also no rcd protection on

the existing ccu.

(note this is a ground floor property and there are other properties are above)

£600

Correction of ring main fault £100

Replacement of pendants high level aged painted shut £190

Trunking to provide a barrier to protect cable powering boiler spur in kitchen £40
TOTAL £2,330.00

shaun_from_Africa

Well, the first thing I would do is to get another quote from an independent electrician and see what they come up with.
As the 1st report was carried out by someone sent by the estate agent, they may well be a friend or someone on their books for doing jobs like this and may be expensive.

FreeBear

If there is space within the consumer unit, it is possible to fit an RCD next to the main breaker. If not, installing one in a separate housing with a second breaker (isolator) is another option. Just because a consumer unit does not comply with current regulations does not mean it has to be replaced. Although, £600 doesn't seem to be excessive. £40 for a (presumably) short length of surface mounted trunking is.

I would also question the logic behind using 16mm² SWA cable when current recommendation is for 25mm² tails. Depending on the distance involved, £1200 does seem to be quite high. Although I'm guessing that as this is a flat, the meters are installed in a central location and the consumer units are inside the individual flats. Pulling SWA cable of any size might be near impossible...

fenwick458

FreeBear said:

If there is space within the consumer unit, it is possible to fit an RCD next to the main breaker. If not, installing one in a separate housing with a second breaker (isolator) is another option. Just because a consumer unit does not comply with current regulations does not mean it has to be replaced. Although, £600 doesn't seem to be excessive. £40 for a (presumably) short length of surface mounted trunking is.

I would also question the logic behind using 16mm² SWA cable when current recommendation is for 25mm² tails. Depending on the distance involved, £1200 does seem to be quite high. Although I'm guessing that as this is a flat, the meters are installed in a central location and the consumer units are inside the individual flats. Pulling SWA cable of any size might be near impossible...

can't just put an upfront RCD in, it contravenes regulation 34.1.
whats the code being given to the suppy cable to the flat? it's MICC? is it udersized, is insulation reistance starting to go?
the quote for repair could be ok i don't know, how long is the run and how much damage will they have to do and does it include making good?
you're right it doesn't need a new consumer unit just because it doesn't meet the regs. what code has it been given, C3or 2?
I'd want to know what the fault is on the ring main before I paid to have it fixed. quite a sneaky trick is just pop that line on quotes and then just make something up and say they fixed it afterwards.
high level painted pendants painted shut, so what? maybe coded them cos they can't be tested, if it was me i'd just list it as a limitation "cannot test pendants" 
trunking to protect boiler cable £40, how long is the cable?
do you have a certificate? if not, this is what you need to do. just pay the original contractor their fee for the test and get them to produce the cert, pass or fail. thats what everyone should get when they pay for en EICR, not just a handwritten quote with no test results, fault codes and list of reccomended remedial works etc..

mwarby

for the ring I'd guess it's a broken ring. Once the break is located an easy fix, but I can imagine a lot of faff to find the break, so £100 isn't too bad. Of course I'd want to see the test results before and after (although easily faked)

damonthebuilder

Sorry to butt in here, but if the existing CU is plastic, would it need to be changed under the new regs coming in on July 1st, even if it's in perfect condition?