Wiring check

Private landlords in England must have the electrical installation inspected and tested at least every five years, under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020. They must give tenants a copy of the report, and have any remedial work it requires done within 28 days, or sooner if the report says so.

If you own the home and live in it, IET guidance recommends a periodic inspection at least every ten years.

If the home is changing hands, the same guidance recommends an inspection then too. For a buyer it shows what they are taking on; for a seller it answers the questions before a survey raises them.

Age on its own does not decide anything, but it tells you what kind of cable to expect. Rubber-insulated cable, used before PVC became standard, goes brittle and cracks when it is disturbed. Lead-sheathed cable is older still. Early PVC is more durable, but it degrades with heat over decades.

Round here, a great many houses went up between the 1950s and the 1980s, and plenty still have their original wiring. An inspection records what is actually in the walls, and whether a rewire is the job to plan for.

An Electrical Installation Condition Report is the written result of an inspection and test of the whole installation. Anything found is coded:

• C1 danger present.
• C2 potentially dangerous.
• C3 improvement recommended.
• FI further investigation required.

The report also gives the date the next inspection is due. If you cannot find yours, or nobody knows when the last one was, that is an answer in itself.

Modern regulations require 30 mA RCD protection for most circuits in a home, including the sockets. An RCD switches off when current leaks to earth, which is what happens when someone touches something live. A rewirable fuse box gives none; nor does an older board with circuit breakers but no RCD.

An RCBO does the RCD’s job and protects against overload too, for one circuit, so a fault on one circuit does not take out half the house. Since 2016, new consumer units in homes have had to be in a non-combustible enclosure, in practice steel. A plastic board from before then is not automatically unsafe, but its replacement will be steel. More on consumer units.

• Round-pin sockets usually belong to a very old installation. Worth an inspection, and a rewire may be the bigger job to plan for.
• Black rubber or fabric-covered flex or cable is older than PVC. Rubber insulation cracks when it is disturbed, so leave it alone and have it inspected.
• Scorch marks mean something has got hot enough to burn, often a loose connection or an overloaded socket.
• Sockets or plugs that get warm point to a loose connection or too much load.
• Buzzing or crackling from a socket, switch or the board usually means a poor connection or arcing.
• Fuses blowing or breakers tripping often means something on that circuit has a fault, or it is overloaded. Fault finding tracks down which.
• Lights that flicker can be the lamp or the fitting. If several do it, or it comes with buzzing, there may be a loose connection.

If a socket, plug, switch or the board is hot, scorched, buzzing or smells of burning, stop using it. If you can reach the consumer unit safely, switch off that circuit, or the main switch, and call us on 07711 031164.

Do nottake covers off, or touch anything that is scorched or wet. Leave it switched off until it has been looked at.