What to expect when an EICR is carried out

• The price

  Check the inspection price, VAT and any applicable Central London travel fee before booking.

• The quotation

  Confirm the installation, testing and report included in your quotation, plus any separately agreed work.

• The calculator

  Use the calculator for the price for a standard flat or house, or request a quotation for other premises.

• On the day

  Arrange access, plan power interruptions and keep the report with its recorded scope and limitations.

Have the address, the property type, and a way into every area that is meant to be in scope. In a block, ask who holds the key to the intake or the riser cupboard before the day, not during it.

Tell the occupier that circuits will be switched off. Fridges, alarms, boilers and network equipment need a plan. Do not clear a consumer unit by taking the cover off yourself.

If the premises are a shop, an office or mixed use, the residential bands do not apply. That is a commercial quotation, arranged on the commercial page, not a flat price with a different label.

The engineer identifies circuits, isolates them, and inspects what can be reached. Power in those areas goes off while the tests run. A locked room, furniture hard against an accessory, or a board that cannot be opened becomes a limitation on the report.

A limitation is a statement of what was not confirmed. It is not a pass for the hidden part, and it is not a repair. If you need that area included, the access has to be solved and the extent agreed.

You should not expect the result in advance. The inspection can be satisfactory, or it can record observations. The fee does not buy a particular outcome.

The visit is finished, for the areas that were in scope, when you can read four things. The address matches the property. The extent names the boards and areas that were included. The limitations name what could not be seen or tested. The recommended next inspection date is the date printed on the report, not a five-year period you have added yourself.

The overall assessment is satisfactory or unsatisfactory for that extent. Any observations sit in the schedule with their own wording. Read those lines. A front page on its own does not tell you what was found.

A limitation is not a pass for the hidden part. If the room you needed is listed as not inspected, say so when you ask for a return visit. Do not describe that room as completed.

You should also know what the file is not. It is not a repair quotation, and it is not a certificate for new work. If the schedule names further investigation or remedial work, that is a second instruction, priced from those observations.

You leave with a condition report for the extent that was inspected: the assessment, the observations, the limitations and the recommended next inspection date. That file is not a repair quotation and it is not a certificate for new work.

If the report names further investigation or remedial work, that is a second conversation. There is no universal repair price. Categories of cost after a failed report, and what changes a remedial quotation, already have their own pages. This one stops at the visit and the report.

Prices: EICR certificate cost. What the quote covers: inspection quote cover. After a failed report: failing EICR costs.