5 Yearly EICR charging practices - how do you charge?

[ElectronicSparks]

Hi

New to the forum and hope you can give some feed back to something I've not come across from a sub-contractor and they way that they charge for testing.

They are charging per 'circuit', OK, have provided them with the latest certs from 2014 (10 year old site and have all the paperwork and drawings from build) for a site we manage.

Nothing electrical gets changed nor altered without our knowledge and relevant paper work etc so over the past 5 years we know of 5 new additional circuits and the 'circuit' count should be what it was in 2014 plus these.

However the 'sub-contractor' emails stated they have discovered 980 'circuits' - our count from the 2014 certs is 764, so 769 should be the total.

They explain that a 3 phase breaker/RCBO etc is 3 'circuits' ?? what? so 3 times the cost.

I have recounted all the TP's and still can not get to the total they state...?

In my 20+ years as a spark I have never counted a TP breaker as 3 'circuits', if they were charging per 'way' then fair enough. Count is still wrong, on going argument....

Is this a new practice or do others charge the same per circuit on TP's?

Thanks for any feed back on this.

Dave

 

[Andy™]

by definition of circuit in BS7671 then its 1 circuit regardless of TP or SP. as for pricing, iTP circuits usually only serve 1 point so often take less time than a SP circuit which usually serves more than 1 point

for me i usually charge day rate for however long it takes with an estimate of how many days itll take

are there any used MCB's? on a quick count without removing any covers ive counted more circutis than there actually are because of this

 

[ElectronicSparks]

Hi Andy

Thanks for the reply, across the site - DB's & SB's we have a total of 62 TP breakers.

They are trying to charge us for an additional 250 'circuits' @ £K which I am currently challenging as my 'circuit count and theirs differs some what..

In the past, like you, we normally have a fixed price excluding remedial's

I did email  an EIT 18th Edition Quote to them but...

IET Wiring Regulations Eighteenth Edition.

Circuit definition; pg 27 - Part 2 ~ “Circuit. An assembly of electrical equipment supplied from the same origin and protected against overcurrent by the same protective device(s)”

It does not state or make any reference to weather or not the protective device is single or three phase, to me counting a three phase protective device as 3 circuits is incorrect

No response off them yet.....

 

[Risteard]

Hi Andy

Thanks for the reply, across the site - DB's & SB's we have a total of 62 TP breakers.

They are trying to charge us for an additional 250 'circuits' @ £K which I am currently challenging as my 'circuit count and theirs differs some what..

In the past, like you, we normally have a fixed price excluding remedial's

I did email  an EIT 18th Edition Quote to them but...

IET Wiring Regulations Eighteenth Edition.

Circuit definition; pg 27 - Part 2 ~ “Circuit. An assembly of electrical equipment supplied from the same origin and protected against overcurrent by the same protective device(s)”

It does not state or make any reference to weather or not the protective device is single or three phase, to me counting a three phase protective device as 3 circuits is incorrect

No response off them yet.....

I don't see what the definition of a circuit has to do with whether they make the business decision to charge a higher rate for a three-phase circuit than for a single phase circuit. If their policy is that a three-phase circuit will be charged as if it were three single phase circuits then that is their prerogative, and for you to either accept or reject. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with BS7671.

 

[Andy™]

I don't see what the definition of a circuit has to do with whether they make the business decision to charge a higher rate for a three-phase circuit than for a single phase circuit. If their policy is that a three-phase circuit will be charged as if it were three single phase circuits then that is their prerogative, and for you to either accept or reject. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with BS7671.

if they want to charge higher for a TP circuit then thats their choice and the quote should be marked as such. i.e 100 SP circuits @ £x each, 50 TP circuits @ £x each. and unless they specifically state their definition of 'circuit' then that of BS7671 should apply. either way, it appears as though they are stating there are more circuits than there is anyway

 

[binky]

sounds like a bit of 'sharp practice' to me?  I would not count a TP cct as 3 ccts, that's rediculous!  Either way if they offered a price then it should have been made clear that this is the case.