An Electrical Installation Condition Report follows a fixed sequence set by Chapter 65 of BS 7671 and IET Guidance Note 3: collect what records exist, agree the extent and limitations with the person ordering the report, inspect against the schedule of inspections, test in the GN3 order with dead tests before live tests, record every circuit on the schedule of test results, code each defect C1, C2, C3 or FI, give the overall assessment with a date for the next inspection, and sign. From 15 October 2026 the report is the BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 model form, which moves FI and C3 into an advisory table and changes the RCD columns. This guide walks the job through in that order.
- Agree the extent and the sampling before you start, and write both into Section D with the name of the person who agreed them.
- Dead tests first, live tests second, and prove dead with a GS38 indicator and proving unit before every dead test.
- The only RCD test BS 7671 requires is an a.c. test at IΔn: 300 ms for a general device, 130 to 500 ms for an S-type.
- On the A4:2026 form only C1 and C2 make the report Unsatisfactory; FI reads "further investigation is advised" and sits with C3.
- A report is complete when the schedules, the observations, Section E and Section F all tell the same story.
What do you need before you start an EICR?
Records and the reason for the report
Section C of the A4 model form asks whether installation records are available and for the date of the last inspection, with a pointer to Regulation 651.1. Ask for the previous EICR or EIC with its schedules, any circuit charts, Minor Works certificates for alterations, and a list of known problems: tripping, flickering, warm accessories. Previous results are what turn a periodic inspection into a report on deterioration. A Zs that has crept from 0.4 Ω to 0.9 Ω on the same circuit tells you something; the 0.9 Ω alone does not.
Section B wants the reason for the report, and it is worth asking because it changes the scope. A landlord's five-yearly report under the England regulations, a pre-purchase report and an insurer's report for a workshop are not the same job. Write the reason in the client's words.
Instruments and documents
You need a calibrated test instrument to BS EN 61557 covering continuity, insulation resistance, loop impedance, prospective fault current and RCD timing, a GS38-compliant two-pole voltage indicator with a proving unit, lock-off kit with your own padlock and tag, a torch, a camera and the model form. Check leads, fuses and the calibration date before you leave the yard, and note the instrument serial numbers: the schedule of test results has a footer for them.
How do you agree the extent and limitations?
Section D of the A4 form is headed "Extent and limitations of inspection and testing (see Regulation 651)" and has four parts: the parts of the installation inspected and tested, the agreed limitations with reasons, the name of the person they were agreed with, and the operational limitations found on the day. The form already prints a default exclusion: unless agreed otherwise, cables concealed in trunking and conduit, under floors, in roof spaces, in the building fabric or underground are not inspected, and neither are safety alerts, corrective actions or recalls on equipment.
Settle these points with the client before the first cover comes off:
- Which boards and circuits are in. For a normal dwelling that is all of them.
- The sample of accessories to be opened. Guidance Note 3 allows anything from 10 to 100 per cent; in a dwelling with forty accessories there is rarely a good reason to sample at all, and the England landlord regulations expect the installation to have been inspected and tested, not a slice of it.
- Which circuits cannot be isolated: fridge-freezers, servers, alarm panels, medical equipment.
- Whether lofts, voids, outbuildings and locked rooms will be accessed.
Write it all down. Item 5.17 of the schedule of inspections, termination of cables at enclosures, carries the instruction "indicate extent and location of sampling in Section D of the report", so a bare "10% sampling" is not a record. If you find defects, widen the sample on that circuit and say so. The full treatment, including LIM and N/V entries, is in EICR Sampling and Limitations Explained. A limitation that stops you deciding whether something is safe produces an FI in Section K, not silence.
How do you carry out the visual inspection?
The visual inspection is done against the schedule of inspections for residential and similar premises up to 100 A, which on the A4 form runs to eight sections. Each item takes one of seven outcomes: acceptable, unacceptable (C1 or C2), improvement recommended (C3), further investigation (FI), not verified (N/V), limitation (LIM) or not applicable (N/A). Work through it in order with the supply on for the parts you can see, then with the board cover off after safe isolation.
| Section of the A4 schedule | What it covers | Items to pay attention to |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 Intake equipment | Visual only: service head, cut-out, meter tails, means of isolation | Defects here are reported to the person ordering the work, who tells the distributor (Note 17) |
| 2.0 Other sources | Microgenerators, batteries, generators (551.6, 551.7) | Warning notices at the origin and isolation points |
| 3.0 Earthing and bonding | Distributor's earthing, earth electrode, conductor sizes, MET, bonding connections (411.3, Chapter 54) | 3.6 confirms main bonding size; 3.8 covers other bonding connections |
| 4.0 Consumer unit | Working space, fixing, IP and fire rating, main linked switch (462.1.201), labelling, RCD provision, cable entries, SPD indication (651.4), AFDD indication | 4.20 asks you to confirm all connections are located, tight and secure |
| 5.0 Distribution and final circuits | Conductor identification, support, insulation, csa, protective devices, cpcs, concealed cables (5.10, 5.11), 30 mA additional protection (5.12), fire barriers, segregation, terminations (5.17), accessories (5.18, 5.19) | 5.10 and 5.11 refer back to the Section D default exclusion, so LIM is the usual entry |
| 6.0 Bath or shower locations | RCD protection, SELV/PELV, shaver units, supplementary bonding, socket position, IP rating by zone | See the bathroom zones guide for the 701 requirements |
| 7.0 Other Part 7 locations | EV charging, solar PV, outdoor, agricultural, caravan and so on | Record each one present |
| 8.0 Prosumer's installation | Chapter 82 | Only where there is generation or storage |
Two items catch people out. Item 4.19 asks you to confirm the SPD's status indication, and item 4.23 does the same for AFDDs; both are N/A where no device is fitted, not a blank. Item 4.20, confirming that every conductor connection in the board is correctly located, tight and secure, means checking terminations, not looking at them. Photograph the board with the cover off and every observation you intend to raise; the pictures settle arguments months later.
What is the correct testing sequence for an EICR?
Guidance Note 3, now in its 10th Edition for Amendment 4, sets the order for a reason: the dead tests show the installation can be re-energised safely before you take readings on it live.
Safe isolation
Before every dead test: identify the circuit, isolate it, lock off with your own padlock, prove the voltage indicator on the proving unit, test between all conductors and to earth, prove the indicator again. That is the HSE GS38 procedure and there is no shortcut version. Tell the occupier what is going off and why, and check anything on a UPS or a battery before you trust a dead reading.
Dead tests
| Order | Test | What it proves | Acceptance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Continuity of protective conductors (R1+R2 or R2) and main and supplementary bonding | Every exposed and extraneous conductive part is connected to earth | R1+R2 consistent with cable length and csa; bonding typically 0.05 Ω or less as a GN3 rule of thumb |
| 2 | Continuity of ring final circuit conductors: r1, rn, r2 end-to-end, then the cross-connected figure-of-eight at each socket | The ring is continuous with no breaks or interconnections | End-to-end readings consistent; cross-connected readings substantially equal at every socket |
| 3 | Insulation resistance at 500 V d.c. for circuits up to 500 V | No breakdown between live conductors and to earth | 1.0 MΩ minimum (Table 64, Regulation 643.3.2); below 2 MΩ, GN3 expects the cause to be looked into |
| 4 | Polarity (dead) | Single-pole devices and fuses are in the line conductor; accessories correctly connected | Confirmed at each point tested |
| 5 | Earth electrode resistance (TT only) | The electrode is good enough for the RCD to disconnect | RA × IΔn ≤ 50 V (Regulation 411.5.3) |
On a periodic inspection, insulation resistance is normally measured with line and neutral connected together to earth, so that electronic equipment left connected is not damaged; the A4 schedule has columns for the test voltage, live-live and live-earth, and "live-live not tested" goes in the remarks with the reason. Switch off dimmers, smart switches, boiler controls and SELV drivers first. If a reading is low, split the circuit and test line to neutral with the loads disconnected; the method is in Insulation Resistance Testing, and the fault-finding in Low Insulation Resistance Troubleshooting. The ring test is covered step by step in Ring Final Circuit Testing.
Live tests
| Order | Test | What it proves | Acceptance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Earth fault loop impedance: Ze at the origin, Zs at the far end of each circuit | Fault current is high enough to operate the protective device in time | Measured Zs no more than the maximum in the Chapter 41 tables corrected for temperature: the 0.8 rule of thumb, or the GN3 tables of maximum measured values |
| 7 | Prospective fault current, line-neutral and line-earth, at the origin and each board | Every protective device can safely interrupt a fault | Ipf below the breaking capacity of every device; record the higher of the two (Note 18) |
| 8 | RCD operation | The RCD disconnects in time | a.c. test at 1 × IΔn: 300 ms maximum for a general device, 130 to 500 ms for an S-type (Regulation 643.8) |
| 9 | Polarity (live confirmation) | Correct polarity at the origin and at points that could not be dead-tested | Correct at every point checked |
| 10 | Functional testing | Switchgear, isolators, RCD and AFDD test buttons, interlocks and controls operate | All operate as intended (643.10) |
The RCD test is the one most people are still doing the old way. Since Amendment 2 in 2022 Regulation 643.8 has asked for a single alternating-current test at IΔn, the same test whatever the RCD type, with the instrument on its Type AC setting. The half-times, five-times and 0°/180° tests are optional fault-finding tools, and the A4 schedule of test results has dropped the 1× and 5× columns for a single "maximum measured disconnection time" column plus a test-button column. The detail, including why the 40 ms figure went, is in RCD Testing Explained. Ze, Ipf, nominal voltage, frequency and the earthing arrangement go in Section I; maximum Zs figures are in Maximum Zs Values BS 7671 and the loop test method in Earth Fault Loop Impedance Testing.
How do you fill in the schedule of test results?
The A4 schedule is one line per circuit per board, with circuit details in columns 1 to 16 and results in columns 17 to 31. For each circuit record:
- Circuit number and description: what it feeds, not what a wrong label says.
- Type of wiring (code letter), reference method, number of points served, live conductor and cpc csa.
- Overcurrent device: BS (EN), type, rating, breaking capacity; and the maximum permitted Zs for it, with a note of the source.
- RCD: BS (EN), type (AC, A, F, B), IΔn and rating where fitted.
- Continuity: r1, rn, r2 and R1+R2 for rings; R1+R2 or R2 for radials.
- Insulation resistance: test voltage, live-live and live-earth.
- Polarity, measured Zs, RCD disconnection time and test-button operation, AFDD test-button operation.
- Remarks in column 31, including equipment vulnerable to testing and any test not done.
Fill it in circuit by circuit as you test. Readings written up later from a notepad land on the wrong line more often than any other EICR error, and nobody can spot a transposed Zs afterwards. A ten-circuit house takes most inspectors around three and a half hours of inspection and testing; the breakdown is in How Long Does an EICR Take. Column-by-column guidance is in How to Fill in a Schedule of Test Results.
How do you code the observations?
Every defect goes in Section K with a code. The A4 form prints two tables, one for C1 and C2 observations and one for C3 and FI, each with an item number, the code and a reference to the schedule item. The codes read: C1 "danger present, risk of injury, immediate remedial action is necessary"; C2 "potentially dangerous, urgent remedial action is necessary"; C3 "improvement recommended"; FI "further investigation is advised". Note 13 to the form says a C1 is made safe on discovery or notified to the owner or user in writing, so if you make something safe, say what you did.
| BS 7671:2018+A2:2022 form | BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 form | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Withdrawn 15 October 2026 | Current; published 15 April 2026 |
| FI wording | Further investigation required without delay | Further investigation is advised |
| Effect of FI on the outcome | Unsatisfactory | Advisory; does not affect the assessment |
| Layout of Section K | One list | Two tables: C1/C2, then C3/FI |
| RCD columns on the schedule | 1 × IΔn and 5 × IΔn | Maximum measured disconnection time, test button |
Electrical Safety First's Best Practice Guide 4 and the worked examples in EICR Observation Codes Explained are the references for applying the codes consistently; the wording itself is covered in How to Write EICR Observations and the findings that come up most in EICR Fails: The Ten Most Common Observations. Use FI only for a suspected safety issue the agreed limitations stopped you resolving. An unidentified circuit breaches 514.8.1 and takes a code; a reading below 1 MΩ fails Table 64 and takes a code. Neither is an FI.
Cross-check before you leave: every low IR value, high Zs, failed RCD, missing cpc or LIM on the schedules should have a matching line in Section K, and every observation should point at the schedule item it came from.
How do you complete the summary and sign off?
Section E has three parts. The general condition of the installation is a few plain sentences on age, evidence of alteration, standard of workmanship and any pattern, such as "several additions to the ring final circuits without RCD protection, all in the same hand". The overall assessment is Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory in terms of suitability for continued service, and Note 12 to the form settles it: Unsatisfactory where any C1 or C2 is given, and C3 and FI do not affect it. Where it is Unsatisfactory the form says C1 and C2 items should be acted on as a matter of urgency.
Section F now reads "subject to the necessary remedial action being taken, I/we recommend that the installation is further inspected and tested before" a date, with a space for the reason. Pick the interval from Regulation 652 and the Guidance Note 3 tables, with the legal maximum where one applies: five years for a privately rented dwelling in England, with a penalty of up to £40,000 for the landlord who ignores it. The intervals are set out in How Often Is an EICR Required.
Section G is the declaration: the person who inspected and tested signs with name, position, company and date, and the person authorising issue signs separately where a firm issues the report. Section H lists the attached schedules, and the form states it is valid only when they are attached. One schedule of inspections and one schedule of circuit details and test results for every board, numbered as pages of the total.
How do you issue the report?
Issue the whole report, every page and every schedule, to the person who ordered it, and the form says they should receive the original. For a privately rented dwelling in England the landlord then has 28 days to give a copy to the tenant and, where the report is Unsatisfactory, 28 days to get the remedial work done and obtain written confirmation; the detail is in Landlord EICR Regulations England. If you found a C1 you could not make safe, put it in writing to the client on the day, which is what Note 13 expects. Keep your own copy with the photographs and raw readings; NICEIC and NAPIT assessors ask for sample reports at every visit, and the retention points are in Electrical Certificate Retention and GDPR.
How Certio helps
Certio produces the EICR, EIC, Minor Works certificate and PAT records on the BS 7671 model forms and turns them into branded PDFs. Photograph the consumer unit and the circuit schedule drafts itself; point the phone camera at a Megger MFT-X1 and the reading goes straight into the schedule of test results, or dictate it while your hands stay on the probes. Suggested observation wording with the regulation reference is there for you to check and confirm. The judgement stays yours; the typing goes. Starter is free for 7 days, then £4.99 a month.
Sources
- IET, BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 Requirements for Electrical Installations, Chapter 65 and the Appendix 6 model Electrical Installation Condition Report (dated 15 April 2026)
- IET Guidance Note 3: Inspection and Testing, 10th Edition
- NICEIC, Amendment 4 guidance (publication 15 April 2026; A2 and A3 withdrawn 15 October 2026)
- Electrical Safety First, Best Practice Guide 4: Electrical Installation Condition Reporting
- HSE, GS38 Electrical Test Equipment for Use on Low Voltage Electrical Systems
- GOV.UK, The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020