I've had this discussion many times with electricians, landlords and agents. The consensus seems to be that pretty much any EICR should be done within 1 - 4 hours (and these are the supposedly reputable firms). The idea of anything longer than that seems to be bordering on the ludicrous to them.
However, just to give you some context, I have 22 years experience as an electrician across various industries, and spent 3 of those years working for a frim who did nothing but domestic and commercial EICR's. They never touched any remedial work, so had no vested interest, and did everything by the book.
I learned more in my 3 years there than in the other 19 years combined. Despite what a lot of electricians will tell you, EICR's are NOT something that just any sparky can do. They require knowledge and experience way above the average to do them properly, interpret the results and produce an accurate report.
As an educational excercise my last apprentice and I tested my own house, in order to go through the process and teach him properly. It's a 3 bed semi detached with a seperate 2 way consumer unit in the garage, a total of 13 circuits.
Bog standard.
It took us 9 hours to carry out the EICR properly, including about 10% sampling (removing of covers and carrying out visual inspections), which is the bare minimum. And keep in mind that this is a property that I live in and know like the back of my hand.
Yet I could go online this morning and find a minimum of 5 sparkys willing to do it for less than 100 quid within the hour.
I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the state of the industry and the cluster**** that is EICR's.
