BS 7671 and EICR reporting, UK wide
Fixed Wire Testing and EICR
An electrical installation degrades quietly. Connections loosen, insulation ages, circuits get extended by whoever was available and nothing looks wrong until something burns. AL23 Safety arranges and manages fixed wire inspection and testing to BS 7671, then turns the report into a remedial plan you can deliver, for clients UK wide.
What is fixed wire testing?
Periodic inspection and testing of the installation itself, not the things plugged into it
Fixed wire testing is the periodic inspection and testing of the permanent electrical installation. Distribution boards, protective devices, circuit conductors, socket outlets, lighting circuits, earthing and bonding. The output is an Electrical Installation Condition Report, usually called an EICR.
An EICR is not a certificate of compliance. It is a snapshot of condition, on a stated sampling basis, against the standard current at the date of inspection. It records departures, grades them by severity and states whether the installation is satisfactory for continued use.
Who needs one
Every duty holder with a fixed installation, plus some by statute
- Employers and occupiers of any commercial, industrial or public building, under the duty to maintain electrical systems so as to prevent danger.
- Private landlords in England, who face an explicit five year statutory cycle.
- Registered providers of social housing in England, brought into the same regime in 2025.
- Licensed premises, where the local authority licensing conditions commonly set the interval.
- Operators whose insurer makes a current satisfactory report a condition of cover.
The regulations that apply
Your legal framework, in plain terms
The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 create the duty to maintain electrical systems in a way that prevents danger so far as is reasonably practicable. BS 7671 is a British Standard rather than a statute. It is the non-statutory standard deemed to satisfy those duties. It is called up directly by the Building Regulations for dwellings in England and Wales and by the electrical safety regulations for rented housing. Two further instruments make inspection genuinely compulsory in housing.
Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, regulation 4(2)
Systems must be maintained, as may be necessary to prevent danger, in a way that prevents danger so far as is reasonably practicable.
BS 7671:2018+A4:2026
Requirements for Electrical Installations, IET Wiring Regulations, Eighteenth Edition.
The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020
Inspection and testing at intervals of no more than five years for private landlords in England.
The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) (Amendment) (Extension to the Social Rented Sector) Regulations 2025
The same regime extended to registered providers of social housing.
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2
The general duty to provide and maintain safe plant.
Amendment 4 and what changes in October 2026
BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 was published on 15 April 2026 by BSI and the IET. It can be implemented immediately from publication. The previous version, BS 7671:2018+A2:2022+A3:2024, is withdrawn six months later on 15 October 2026. From that date all new installations, alterations and periodic inspection and testing must be to Amendment 4.
The substantive changes are worth knowing if you own plant. Amendment 4 adds a new chapter on stationary secondary batteries covering electrical storage and supply systems. It adds a new Section 545 on functional earthing and equipotential bonding for information and communication technology equipment, plus a new Section 716 addressing Power over Ethernet explicitly for the first time. Section 710, medical locations, is substantially revised, with a new schedule for recording supplementary protective equipotential bonding conductor resistance results. Protective Neutral Bonding is now formally recognised as an earthing system option.
How the codes work
C1, C2, C3 and FI, in plain terms
C1. Danger present. Risk of injury. Immediate remedial action required
A danger of shock or fire exists now, with no further fault or action needed to cause harm. Exposed live parts are the classic example.
C2. Potentially dangerous. Urgent remedial action required
The fault could become dangerous. A second fault or a foreseeable action is needed to cause actual harm. A missing earth on a circuit is the classic example.
C3. Improvement recommended
A departure from BS 7671 that presents no immediate or potential danger. Often the result of the standard moving on since the installation was built.
FI. Further investigation required without delay
Something is wrong and more time or work is needed to establish what.
A report recording any C1 or C2 observation is unsatisfactory. A report recording only C3 observations is satisfactory. A C3 on its own does not make a report fail. The treatment of FI has been the subject of change under Amendment 4:2026 and should be checked against the current model forms rather than assumed. We will tell you which position your report has been written to.
What the inspection covers
Boards, circuits, protection and the earthing behind them
- Visual inspection of every distribution board, consumer unit and enclosure, including terminations and signs of thermal damage.
- Protective device type, rating and discrimination checked against the circuits they protect.
- Continuity of protective conductors, main protective bonding and supplementary bonding.
- Insulation resistance testing, circuit by circuit, with the sampling basis stated on the report.
- Earth fault loop impedance and prospective fault current at the origin and at circuit ends.
- RCD operation, including tests at the rated residual current and at five times the rated current.
- Polarity, phase sequence and correct identification of conductors.
- Circuit charts, labelling and warning notices, which are almost always out of date.
- Departures caused by later alterations, extensions and unrecorded additions, which are a recurring ignition source in any fire risk assessment.
- Suitability of the installation for its present use, particularly after a change of occupancy.
- The interface with your portable equipment scheme, since a failing socket circuit shows up first as appliance faults picked up by PAT testing.
Our process
Scope, test, then track remedials to closure
- 01
Scope and sample
We agree the extent of the installation, the sampling percentage and how much can be tested live or with limited outage.
- 02
Outage planning
Testing needs circuits dead. We plan the shutdown around production, trading hours or resident access. We say up front what cannot be tested without one.
- 03
Inspection and testing
A registered electrician carries out the inspection and test. We appoint them, brief them and hold them to the scope.
- 04
Interpretation
We review the report, challenge coding that looks wrong and translate the observations into a prioritised remedial schedule with realistic timescales.
- 05
Remedial oversight
We track C1 and C2 items to closure, obtain written confirmation of completion and file it with your other statutory records.
What you get
The report plus a prioritised remedial plan
- The Electrical Installation Condition Report itself, with schedules of inspection and test results.
- A plain English summary of what the report says, separating danger from housekeeping.
- A prioritised remedial schedule, split into immediate, 28 day and planned works.
- A recommended date for the next inspection, with the reasoning stated.
- Where you are a landlord, the report packaged for issue to tenants and to the local housing authority within the statutory timescales.
What we need from you
Old reports, an outage window and access
- Existing EICRs, installation certificates and any as-built drawings or circuit charts.
- Agreement on an outage window. Where one is not possible, an early conversation about why.
- Access to intake rooms, risers, plant rooms and locked cupboards.
- A named person who can authorise immediate isolation if a C1 is found.
Why AL23 Safety
A soft code is a false satisfactory
Accountable
If a report is coded soft to keep a client happy, we will say so. A C2 recorded as a C3 is a false satisfactory and it will not survive a claim.
Expert and chartered
We scope the work, appoint the right registered electrician, interpret the results and turn them into an action plan you can actually deliver.
Practical, not just compliant
We plan around your outage constraints instead of demanding a full shutdown. We tell you honestly what the sampling basis leaves unexamined.
UK wide
We manage fixed wire programmes across the UK, from single buildings to housing portfolios and multi-site estates.
Get a straight reading of your EICR
Send us the report and we will tell you what it means
If you have a report you do not trust or a remedial quote you cannot judge, a review is often more useful than another inspection. We are happy to look before you spend.
Common questions
Answers, up front
Cannot see your question? Get in touch and we will answer it directly.
Contact usFor private rented and social rented housing in England the maximum is five years, unless the report specifies a shorter date. Elsewhere the intervals are recommendations rather than law. They live in IET Guidance Note 3 rather than in the body of BS 7671. The figures verified for licensed premises include one year for caravan parks, launderettes, petrol filling stations and swimming pools. Theatres and places of public entertainment sit at three years. The widely quoted intervals for offices, industrial premises and domestic property should be checked against the current Guidance Note before you rely on them.
No. A report recording only C3 observations is satisfactory. C3 means a departure from the current standard that presents no immediate or potential danger, which is common in any installation built to an earlier edition. Only C1 and C2 observations make a report unsatisfactory.
A C1 means danger is present now. The affected circuit or equipment should be made safe before the inspector leaves site, usually by isolation. The remedial work then follows immediately. For landlords in England the regulations require further investigative or remedial work to be carried out by a qualified person within 28 days, unless the report specifies a shorter period.
The private rented sector electrical safety regime was extended to registered providers of social housing in England. Installations must be inspected and tested at least every five years, with the same report supply and 28 day remedial duties. A separate duty covers electrical equipment supplied by the landlord. The maximum financial penalty was raised from £30,000 to £40,000. A statutory review is required by 1 November 2030.
We scope the work, appoint a registered electrician, supervise delivery and interpret the results. The separation is deliberate. The person who writes your remedial plan should not be the person selling you the remedial works.
Cost is driven by the number of distribution boards and circuits, the sampling percentage agreed, accessibility and whether the work has to happen outside normal hours. A single board retail unit and a manufacturing site with forty boards are different jobs. Send us a board count and we will scope it honestly.
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