Commercial EICR Testing

Commercial Electrical Installation Condition Reports for businesses, landlords, managing agents and housing providers across Cannock, Staffordshire and the wider Midlands.

Ashware Electrical Ltd is NAPIT registered and has been trading since 2015. All inspection and testing is carried out and certified to BS 7671. We also carry out reactive maintenance for a housing association covering Birmingham, Walsall and parts of Wolverhampton, so working in occupied and operational premises is routine rather than exceptional.

How often a commercial EICR is needed

There is no single figure that applies to every building. The interval depends on the type of premises and how it is used, and it is set out in guidance rather than as one blanket rule.

• Commercial and industrial premises are commonly inspected every five years, or at change of occupancy
• Some environments are shorter — typically three years or less where conditions are harsher or the public is at greater risk
• Where a commercial building contains rented residential units, those dwellings fall under the five-year duty in the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020

Your insurer, your landlord or your lease may also set a requirement, and in practice that is often what drives the date. If you are not sure what applies to your premises, tell us what the building is and how it is used and we will tell you straight.

Why commercial is not just a bigger domestic job

The cost of a commercial EICR is driven by the number of distribution boards and the number of circuits, not by floor area. Two units of the same size can be very different jobs.

Three things affect the price more than anything else, and any contractor who quotes without asking about them is guessing:

• Access. High-level distribution, ceiling voids and external lighting may need scaffold or a MEWP. We arrange access equipment on your behalf and pass it through at cost plus a handling margin rather than burying it in the price.
• Working environment. A live production area, a kitchen mid-service or a tenanted flat above a shop all take longer than an empty unit.
• Out of hours. Where circuits cannot be isolated during trading, testing has to happen evenings or weekends. We would rather work around you than shut you down.

What it costs

We publish our commercial rates in full. You should not have to send three emails to find out roughly what something costs, and we would rather you knew before you called than after.

Item	Rate
First distribution board — inspection, testing and certification	£150 + VAT
Each additional distribution board	£120 + VAT
Per circuit, across all boards	£20 + VAT
Emergency lighting test and report, per system	£75 + VAT

Worked example. A small commercial unit with one distribution board and ten circuits: £150 for the board, plus 10 × £20 for the circuits, equals £350 + VAT. A two-board site with twenty-four circuits: £150 + £120 + (24 × £20), equals £750 + VAT.

That is the whole calculation. There is nothing else added on top except access equipment where the building genuinely needs it, and out-of-hours working if you ask us to test outside trading hours — both agreed with you in advance, in writing, before we start.

Emergency lighting testing makes sense at the same visit rather than as a separate mobilisation — you are only paying for us to attend once.

Remedial works are priced separately once the report is issued, and you are under no obligation to use us for them.

What you get

The full report rather than a summary: the schedule of inspections, the schedule of test results for every circuit, each observation with its classification code, and a clear satisfactory or unsatisfactory outcome. A report is unsatisfactory if it contains any C1, C2 or FI. C3 items are recommendations and do not make it a fail — we will tell you which is which rather than quoting remedials on both.

Paperwork is issued promptly and in a form you can hand straight to an insurer, a managing agent or a local authority.

Landlords, agents and housing providers

If you hold a portfolio we would rather talk about a programme than a series of one-off call-outs. Scheduling inspections in batches by area cuts travel, keeps the certification dates tidy, and means you are not chasing expiry dates one property at a time.

We can also pick up the resulting remedial works, emergency lighting and reactive repairs, so it is one contractor rather than three.

Also available

• Commercial installations, alterations and additions
• Fault finding on tripping and intermittent circuits
• Remedial works arising from an EICR, ours or someone else’s
• Emergency lighting installation and testing to BS 5266
• Lighting and power, including LED replacement
• Commercial EV charge points

Commercial electrical services · Recent work and projects · Domestic and landlord EICRs

Areas we cover

Cannock and Staffordshire, plus Shropshire, Derbyshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire and the West Midlands including Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Dudley and Coventry. Full detail on our service areas page.

Arrange a commercial EICR