An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) is the formal record of a periodic inspection and test of the fixed wiring in a property. In plain English: a qualified electrician checks the consumer unit, circuits, sockets, switches, lighting, earthing and bonding, and residual current devices, then writes down whether the installation is satisfactory for continued use.

Who typically needs one? Landlords with a Welsh occupation contract; landlords letting in Chester or elsewhere in England; workplace duty holders; homeowners buying, selling, or checking older wiring; and estate agents gathering paperwork before a let. Stewart Rawson Electrical carries out EICRs from Jubilee Manor on the Wrexham Industrial Estate. Coverage includes Wrexham, Chester and nearby towns including Gresford, Ruabon, Holt and Penycae.

Stewart Rawson Electrical is an NICEIC approved contractor, founded in 2010. Inspection and testing follow the current 18th Edition of the IET Wiring Regulations (BS 7671). The firm does not use the withdrawn 17th Edition.

This page explains what an EICR is and who needs one. It also covers how long a report lasts for a Welsh rental, what the C1, C2, C3 and FI codes mean, and what to do if the overall result is unsatisfactory. It is practical information as of 14 September 2026, not legal advice. We link official sources where the law matters.

What an Electrical Installation Condition Report is

An EICR looks at the fixed electrical installation. That includes the consumer unit, circuits, sockets, switches, lighting, earthing and bonding, and residual current devices. It is a condition report. It is not a new-installation certificate and not a portable appliance test. The inspector records the condition of the installation against BS 7671. They list any observations and code them. They then state whether the installation is satisfactory for continued service.

The next inspection date

The report also sets a recommended date for the next inspection. For a Welsh rental that date is not just a suggestion. If the report calls for a reinspection sooner than five years, the report is only valid until that earlier date.

What this page will not invent

What we will not do on this page is invent prices, typical job times, or case studies. If you want a quote, use the numbers and email at the end of the page. For how we work at scale for local landlords, see our 2023 note on electrical checks for more than 700 properties managed by Wingetts in Wrexham: Ensuring tenant safety: electrical checks for 700 properties in Wrexham. That post is the source. This page does not add claims to it. Estate agents gathering a Welsh or Chester rental file can also use our estate agent electrical checklist.

Who needs an EICR

Landlords in Wales

Private renting in Wales is not the same legal regime as England. The relevant duties sit under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. They also sit under the Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) (Wales) Regulations 2022, as amended. Rent Smart Wales is the licensing and advice body for Welsh landlords and agents.

In plain English: if you let a home in Wales, you are expected to keep the electrical installation safe for the people living there. That usually means arranging periodic inspection and testing by a qualified person and holding a current electrical condition report — most often an EICR — for each period of occupation. For a newly built dwelling, an Electrical Installation Certificate covering the whole installation can stand in place of an EICR, with the important limit described below.

If there is no valid report in place, regulation 6 treats the dwelling as unfit for human habitation. Rent Smart Wales also warns about missing copies. If you do not give the contract-holder a copy of the report, you are likely not meeting the fitness standard even if the installation itself is satisfactory.

How long an EICR lasts for a Welsh rental

Under regulation 6(2) of the Fitness for Human Habitation (Wales) Regulations 2022, an electrical condition report is valid:

  • until the end of five years beginning with the day of the inspection, or
  • if the report says the next inspection should be done sooner than five years, until that earlier date on the report.

That five-year period is a Welsh statutory rule. It happens to match the usual English interval. It does not come from the English 2020 regulations. Do not describe it as if it did. If the electrician writes a shorter interval, the shorter interval is the one that counts. Rent Smart Wales also asks landlords to watch for wording such as “five years or on change of tenancy”. Check with the electrician whether a further inspection is actually required when the contract-holder changes.

Landlords can use a new-build Electrical Installation Certificate instead of an EICR. Rent Smart Wales is clear on the limit once the dwelling is let. The certificate is then only valid for five years. That limit applies even if the EIC itself shows a ten-year domestic reinspection date.

Copying the report to the contract-holder

Copying the report to the contract-holder is a separate duty, with shorter clocks than England:

  • Give a copy of the most recent electrical condition report within 14 days of the occupation date (and written confirmation of any investigatory or remedial work done after that inspection but before occupation).
  • If an inspection is done after occupation, give a copy of that report within 14 days of the inspection date.
  • If investigatory or remedial work is done after occupation, give written confirmation of that work within 14 days of the day you received the confirmation.

Those 14-day periods come from the Welsh regulations as amended in November 2022 (they were originally seven days). They are not the English 28-day copy rule.

If you let in Chester or elsewhere in England

Chester is in England. English private rented electrical safety is a different statute. The rules sit in the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 (since extended to social housing). In outline, English landlords must have the installation inspected and tested at least every five years. They must give an existing tenant a copy of the report within 28 days. They must give a new tenant a copy before they occupy. Where the report requires remedial or further investigative work, complete that work within 28 days. Use any shorter period the report specifies instead.

Do not apply the Welsh 14-day copy rule, or the Welsh “as soon as possible” remedial wording, to an English tenancy. If you hold properties on both sides of the border, treat Wrexham and Chester as two legal lists, not one.

Commercial premises and other workplaces

There is no single statutory “every five years” EICR rule for shops, offices, factories or other workplaces. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger. An EICR is the usual written evidence of that work. It shows a competent person has inspected and tested the fixed installation.

How often that should happen is a risk decision. BS 7671 and IET Guidance Note 3 give recommended initial intervals. Those are often around five years for many offices and shops. Some industrial or higher-risk sites need shorter intervals. Those figures are guidance, not a legal timetable. Work to the date printed on your last report unless something has changed. Examples include a refurbishment, a change of use, water damage, or a fault.

Homeowners

Owner-occupiers in England and Wales are not under a statutory duty to hold a periodic EICR. Many still commission one when buying or selling. Others ask after flood or fire, after uncertified DIY work, or when the wiring is old. Insurers and lenders sometimes ask. The inspector will recommend the next inspection date from the condition of the installation, not from a legal clock. If you also need other domestic electrical work — rewires, sockets, consumer units, lighting — see our domestic electrician page.

C1, C2, C3 and FI — what the codes mean

The electrician gives every observation on an EICR a classification code. The overall result of the report (satisfactory or unsatisfactory) follows from those codes. Read the summary page of your own report. Do not assume a verbal “it passed” without the document. We also keep a standalone guide to EICR codes C1, C2, C3 and FI in plain English.

  • C1 — Danger present. There is a risk of injury. You must take immediate remedial action. A competent inspector should tell you at once and follow it up in writing. Preferably they make the danger safe before leaving, for example by isolating the affected circuit.
  • C2 — Potentially dangerous. You must take urgent remedial action. The installation is not safe to leave as it is, even if nobody has been hurt yet.
  • C3 — Improvement recommended. The item is not classed as dangerous. A report that contains only C3 observations can still be satisfactory. Acting on C3 items is often sensible. It is not what makes a Welsh or English rental report fail.
  • FI — Further investigation. The inspector has seen something that could not be fully identified within the agreed extent of the inspection. The installation needs further investigation. That work decides whether danger or potential danger exists.

C1 and C2 make the overall assessment unsatisfactory. C3 does not.

How Amendment 4 treats FI

FI needs a careful reading in 2026. For years, industry guidance treated an FI observation as making the report unsatisfactory, alongside C1 and C2. That guidance included IET inspection FAQs, Electrical Safety First Best Practice Guide 4, English government landlord guidance, and Rent Smart Wales in July 2025. Amendment 4 to BS 7671:2018, published on 15 April 2026, changes that on reports issued to Amendment 4. FI is now worded as further investigation “is advised”. On its own it no longer makes the overall assessment unsatisfactory. C1 and C2 still do.

Until 15 October 2026 electricians may use both the previous version of BS 7671 and Amendment 4. The previous version is Amendment 2 as further amended by Amendment 3. From 15 October 2026 BSI withdraws the previous version. Electricians should then carry out new EICRs to Amendment 4. You may therefore still receive a report on which FI makes the outcome unsatisfactory. Always go by the satisfactory / unsatisfactory box on the document in your hand. Treat any C1 or C2 as needing urgent attention.

For more background on the 2026 change, see our notes on BS 7671 Amendment 4 and how the FI code is treated under Amendment 4.

If the EICR is unsatisfactory

Unsatisfactory means the installation is not assessed as safe for continued service. It does not mean the building has to be emptied that afternoon. It does mean you have to deal with the coded defects. The usual path is: make any C1 danger safe, arrange remedial or further investigation for C2 (and FI where your report still treats FI as a fail), then obtain written confirmation of that work. For a rental you may also need a retest or a fresh report so the file shows a valid satisfactory condition report. Step-by-step: what happens after an unsatisfactory EICR.

What to do next

In outline:

  • Read the report with the electrician so you know which observations are C1, C2, C3 or FI, and which circuits they sit on.
  • The electrician should already have made C1 items safe or isolated them where that was possible on the day. If not, make them safe without delay.
  • Arrange the remedial or investigatory work the report calls for. Use a qualified person. Written confirmation from that person is what you will later hand to a contract-holder.
  • In Wales, Rent Smart Wales tells landlords to arrange remedial works as soon as possible and to give C1, C2 or FI items immediate attention. The Welsh regulations do not copy England’s 28-day remedial deadline. What they do require, once the work is done, is that the contract-holder receives written confirmation within 14 days of the day you received that confirmation. Until there is a valid electrical condition report in place, the fitness rules can treat the dwelling as unfit for human habitation.
  • In England (including Chester rentals), landlords must complete remedial or further investigative work required by the report within 28 days, or any shorter period the report specifies. You then send written confirmation to the tenant and, under the English regulations, to the local council within 28 days of completing the work.
  • A report with only C3 observations can still be satisfactory. You can still ask us to quote for the recommended improvements. There is no legal clock attached to C3 on its own.

We can quote for the inspection and, separately, for any remedial work the report identifies. We do not publish prices here because every installation is different. Agents managing a mixed Wrexham and Chester portfolio can start from the estate agent checklist.

Smoke, heat and carbon monoxide alarms in a Welsh rental

Fitness for human habitation in Wales is not only an EICR. Regulation 5 of the same 2022 regulations requires, during each period of occupation:

  • a smoke alarm on each storey that is in proper working order, connected to the dwelling’s electrical supply, and linked to every other mains-powered smoke alarm in the dwelling, and
  • a carbon monoxide alarm in proper working order in each room that contains a gas appliance, an oil-fired combustion appliance, or a solid fuel burning combustion appliance (a “room” here includes a hall, landing or corridor).

Welsh Government landlord guidance also says a landlord may consider a heat alarm in the kitchen. That is guidance, not the legal minimum in regulation 5. A dedicated supporting article covers placement, interlinking and evidence for Rent Smart Wales. It also covers how alarm work sits alongside an EICR: Smoke, heat and CO alarms in a Welsh rental. This page only flags the duty. A Welsh landlord should not treat the EICR as the whole of FFHH.

The standard we inspect to

The current UK standard for low-voltage electrical installations is BS 7671:2018, the 18th Edition of the IET Wiring Regulations. BSI published Amendment 4 (BS 7671:2018+A4:2026) on 15 April 2026. The previous version remains usable until BSI withdraws it on 15 October 2026. From that date new EICRs should be to Amendment 4.

The Welsh fitness regulations still define “electrical safety standards” by reference to BS 7671:2018+A2:2022. As of 14 September 2026, that statutory citation still cites the earlier edition rather than Amendment 4. In practice we inspect and test as NICEIC approved contractors against the current edition of BS 7671. If you need the report for a Welsh occupation contract, say so when you book. That way the paperwork matches the duty you are trying to meet.

Where we carry out EICRs

We are based at Jubilee Manor, Sun Lane, Wrexham Industrial Estate, Wrexham, LL13 9RW. The work this page is about is inspection and testing in Wrexham and Chester. We offer the same service in the surrounding towns we already cover — Gresford, Ruabon, Holt and Penycae among them. Those names are places we drive to, not separate websites.

Ask for an EICR if you are a landlord with a Welsh occupation contract. Workplace duty holders and homeowners who want the fixed wiring checked can ask too. If you also need portable appliance testing or emergency lighting tests, say so on the enquiry. Those are separate reports. They are not a substitute for an EICR.

Related EICR guides

More detail on the questions landlords and agents ask most often:

Get a quote

For a quote on an Electrical Installation Condition Report, call Stewart Rawson Electrical on 07789 264398 or 01978 664757, email info@stewartrawsonelectrical.co.uk, or use the form on our contact page.

Stewart Rawson Electrical, Jubilee Manor, Sun Lane, Wrexham Industrial Estate, Wrexham, LL13 9RW.