Electrician Harlow

Unsatisfactory EICR: what it means and what to do next

An unsatisfactory result is not a verdict that your wiring is dangerous. It means at least one observation on the report needs action — and which code it carries decides how fast, and how much that is likely to cost.

Which codes make a report unsatisfactory

A report is unsatisfactory if it contains any C1 (danger present, immediate action), any C2 (potentially dangerous, urgent action) or any FI (further investigation required without delay). A C3 — improvement recommended — does not fail a report on its own.

Read the FI items first, because they are the most commonly misunderstood. An FI does not say a fault exists; it says the engineer could not determine something on the day. A report with no C1 and no C2 can still fail purely on FIs. That is why it is worth knowing, before you book an inspection, whether the price includes coming back to clear them.

If you are a landlord: the clock is running

In England, under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, remedial or further investigative work the report requires must be completed within 28 days, or sooner if the report specifies, and you must give the tenant written confirmation that it has been done. These rules have applied to all existing tenancies since 1 April 2021.

In Wales, the Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) (Wales) Regulations 2022 require a valid electrical condition report for each period of occupation, and the contract-holder must receive a copy within 14 days of an inspection. A landlord who is not compliant is treated as letting a dwelling that is unfit for human habitation — a consequence that is harder to live with than a remedial invoice.

What to do, in order

  1. Deal with any C1 immediately. An engineer who finds one will normally make it safe before leaving — isolating a circuit, for instance. If that happened, the circuit may be off until it is repaired.
  2. List the C2 and FI items separately. They are different kinds of work: C2s are repairs, FIs are further testing. Pricing them together hides which is which.
  3. Get a second remedial quote from someone other than the inspector. The engineer who codes the observations has an obvious interest in doing the work. That is not an accusation — it is simply a reason to compare before you agree to anything.
  4. Ask for the evidence. Every coded observation should correspond to a test result or a described condition. You are entitled to understand why each item is on the report.
  5. Check registration on the Registered Competent Person Electrical register before booking the remedial work.

When a failed report means something bigger

A handful of C2s spread across one or two circuits is a repair job. Widespread C2 observations across most of the installation — degraded insulation, missing earthing at lighting points, old rubber-sheathed cable — is a different conversation, and pricing each item individually can cost more than addressing the cause. Read rewiring and fault finding before you commit to a long list of separate repairs.

Avoiding this next time

Most of the cost pain around an unsatisfactory report is avoidable at the booking stage. Know what a fair EICR price looks like for your property size, ask whether every circuit is tested rather than a sample, and confirm whether re-attendance for FI items is included. Those three questions are what separate a report you can act on from one you have to pay to finish.

Get a second remedial quote

Send the observations from your report and registered electricians covering CM17–CM20 will quote for the work — so you have something to compare against the inspector's price.

What we will not do: we do not sell your details on, we do not add you to a marketing list, and we do not require a phone number. If you would rather not be called, leave the phone out — email is enough.