Commercial EICR cost for shops, cafés, offices and small units.

How a commercial EICR is priced

We price the premises. The standard job is a small commercial building on one board, up to 12 circuits.

That job has a published from price you can see before you ring. A bigger site gets one written price for the whole job once I've walked round it, and we carry the work out for that price.

There's no price per circuit. The number of boards and circuits is what moves the price. Getting safe access to them matters too.

Do commercial properties need an EICR?

Not by name. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger, to the extent that is reasonably practicable, and the duty falls on employers and the self-employed for the parts they control.

The guidance HSE publishes on those regulations calls inspection and testing an essential part of preventive maintenance. It also says that wiring which meets BS 7671 is likely to meet the regulations, which is why a coded report against that standard is the usual way to show the duty has been met.

If you rent your unit, the lease should say whether you or the landlord arranges the report.

How often a commercial EICR is due

When your last report says it is. There's no fixed interval in law for commercial premises, so I set the date of the next inspection on the report, going by the IET's guidance for that kind of building and the condition the wiring is in.

HSE's advice is to test often enough that the wiring has little chance of deteriorating to the point of danger. A workshop with damp and dust in the air needs a shorter gap than a dry office that has barely changed.

A new lease is a good moment to have one done even if the last report is still in date, because you start knowing what you have taken on. If your lease or your insurer sets a date of its own, keep to that one too.

What the inspection covers

My inspection covers the fixed installation. That means each board and every circuit on it, down to the sockets and light fittings. The earthing and bonding are checked too, since they're what stop a fault from turning into a shock.

The report's first pages record how much of the installation was covered and any limits we agreed beforehand, such as a locked plant room or a board hidden behind racking, so it's clear what wasn't checked.

Where there is a three-phase supply, each phase is tested along with the circuits it feeds, and any sub-boards get the same treatment as the main one.

Plug-in equipment isn't part of a condition report, and testing it is a separate job that I don't take on.

The findings are coded exactly as they would be on a domestic condition report. Any code for danger, or for something that needs investigating, makes the report unsatisfactory.

Testing while you stay open

Each circuit has to go off while it's tested, so we plan the order. Tell me which circuits feed the tills, the chillers, the server or the intruder alarm, and those get done when losing them matters least.

If stock or shelving stands in front of a board or along a cable route, tell us when you book, so the time to move it is allowed for and nothing is left untested on the day.

Larger premises can be split over more than one visit, a floor or a board at a time.

Keeping the report with your records

File the report with your fire risk assessment and the emergency lighting logbook, where an inspector or an insurer would expect to find it.

When the next inspection comes round, the last report shows me what was found and what was put right, so I'm not starting from nothing.

After the report

Where I've coded something, I'll explain what it means and price the repair in writing. None of it goes ahead until you say so.

Emergency lighting has its own annual test, priced and certified separately, because a condition report never runs the lights down on battery.

A guesthouse's condition report is priced as a home's, and a house let as an HMO comes under the rented-home rules.

Holiday parks add the pitch supplies, which the site licence covers along with the buildings.