Farm electrical inspection to Section 705.

How often does a farm need an electrical inspection?

More often than a house. IET Guidance Note 3, the electrician's handbook for inspection and testing, sets a shorter recommended interval for agricultural premises than for homes, shops or offices, because damp, dust, vermin and machinery wear an installation out sooner.

The date on your last report is the one that counts. Whoever did the last inspection puts a recommended date for the next one on the report, and can bring it forward if the installation is in poor shape. With no report on file at all, treat the farm as overdue.

Insurers set conditions of their own. Some farm policies ask for electrical inspections at a stated interval, and the schedule will say if yours does.

Is a farm electrical inspection a legal requirement?

Not on a set date. Regulation 4 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 says electrical systems must be maintained so they don't cause danger, as far as reasonably practicable, and on a farm that duty sits with whoever employs people or works there on their own account.

The HSE's guidance for farms asks for installations to be checked from time to time and repaired by a competent electrician.

What I check on a farm inspection

I start at the main supply and work outwards building by building. At each board I look over the board itself and everything it feeds, then test the circuits one at a time, including whether each RCD trips as it should.

A farm inspection looks for things a house inspection rarely meets. Rats chew cable, and washdown water gets past the seals on fittings. Armoured cable between buildings gets crushed by loaders, and the bonding on pen steelwork can go missing.

Wiring added over the years gets coded too, like an extension lead run across the yard to a shed or a lamp hung on flex in a calf pen.

Barns full of hay and straw get a closer look at anything that could start a fire. Section 705 expects protection that cuts the supply on a small leakage current in those buildings, and light fittings suited to dusty, combustible surroundings.

Housing for pigs and poultry needs supplementary bonding to the metalwork the animals can touch, and so do cattle sheds. I test that it is there and still connected.

The report and the insurer summary

The findings go into the same coded format as any condition report, so each one carries a code for how urgent it is and the front page gives the overall result, satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

On top sits a short summary written for your insurer, so a broker can find each building's outcome without wading through test results.

A farm shop or a let cottage comes under the general rules instead, so the shop has a commercial condition report and the cottage a domestic one.

How a farm inspection is priced

The starting price is for one accessible building or board with up to 12 circuits.

A big yard is a different job from a single shed. Whole-farm inspections are quoted as a package after a free survey, and so are boards that feed a longer list of circuits than the standard job.

Remedial work the report recommends is quoted in writing, and you choose whether it goes ahead and when. On a farm that often means fitting it round the season.

Switching off during the inspection

Some tests can only be done with a circuit switched off, so we agree the order with you before I start. Anything the stock rely on, like the ventilation fans or the milk cooler, is planned around, and most of the looking happens with the power on.

If the inspection shows a board is full, or the supply is struggling with what's now plugged into it, upgrading to a three-phase supply is its own job, quoted separately.

Getting ready for the inspection

Have the last report to hand, if there is one, and a rough list of which building each board feeds. Clear access to every board and to the main switch saves time, and so does knowing where any buried cable between buildings runs.

Tell me about anything that has tripped or flickered since the last inspection. A note from you points me straight at the faults most worth chasing.

After the inspection

Anything dangerous gets the code that means act now, and I'll tell you about it on the spot rather than leave it for the report.