What does an electrical safety check involve?

When undertaking an EICR, your electrical inspector will move through a four-step process: 

1. Visual inspection

The first step is a visual inspection to spot obvious signs of damage or poor installation quality, including: 

• cracks or wear and tear in socket-outlets or switches 
• signs of overheating or burning 
• outdated or damaged consumer units/fuse boards 
• missing or broken equipment and enclosure covers 
• incorrect labelling of circuits 
• DIY alterations that may not meet regulations. 

2. Testing of circuits

Using a range of specialist equipment, your electrical inspector will isolate parts of your installation and perform a defined range of tests on the wiring around the home.  

This includes: 

• Continuity testing: to check all wires are properly connected with no unintended breaks. 
• Insulation resistance testing: to ensure all wires are properly insulated and there’s no risk of the insulation breaking down, resulting in potential faults or electric shock risks. 
• Polarity testing: to confirm that live and neutral wires are correctly connected and that the circuit protective devices are correctly installed. 
• Earth fault loop impedance testing: to verify that, if a fault occurs, the system will trip quickly to safely cut off the supply.   
• RCD testing: to ensure that RCDs function as intended and that they trip quickly enough to avoid electric shock.  

3. Recording the results

If any faults or issues are found, your electrician will note these down and assign each one a classification code: 

• Code C1: danger present – immediate action required. 
• Code C2: potentially dangerous – urgent remedial work needed. 
• Code C3: improvement recommended – not dangerous but should be improved. 
• FI: further investigation required. 

4. Issuing the report

Following the inspection, the homeowner, landlord, or business will receive a full report on the electrical safety status of their home or property, listing any electrical faults diagnosed, their classification code, and recommendations of how to fix them.  

EICRs are either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. If a C1, C2 or FI code is assigned to any observed issue, this will result in an unsatisfactory outcome.  

Note that an FI classification code can be assigned to issues that are not necessarily faults. It can simply mean an unknown situation that needs further investigation to rule out a potential fault.