News & Updates

By Kenny Cook EngTech TMIET When you take on a commercial lease, you often take on the building's electrical installation too. Under many leases, especially full repairing and insuring leases, the tenant is responsible for keeping it safe and may have to hand it back in good condition at the end. A few checks before you sign can save a lot of money later. Ask for the latest EICR The Electrical Installation Condition Report shows the condition of the fixed wiring. Check when it was done, whether the result was satisfactory and whether any C1, C2 or FI items were listed. If there are outstanding defects, ask who will fix them before you move in. If there's no report, or it's out of date, ask the landlord to get one done or factor the cost in. Our guide explains what the EICR codes mean. Check who is responsible for what Your lease should say who looks after the electrical installation. In a single-let building on a full repairing lease that's usually the tenant. In a multi-let building, the landlord or managing agent usually looks after the common parts and the landlord's supplies, while tenants look after their own areas. If...

By Kenny Cook EngTech TMIET The distribution board is the heart of your electrical installation. It splits the supply into circuits and protects each one. Boards can last a long time, but there comes a point when repairing or extending an old one stops making sense. These are the signs we look for. Signs it's time to replace Your EICR flags it. Codes against the board itself, such as damaged enclosures, missing covers or unsuitable protective devices, often mean replacement is the sensible fix rather than a patch. No spare ways. If you can't add a circuit for new equipment, EV chargers or an extension without overloading the board, it's time for a bigger one. Old or obsolete equipment. Boards with rewireable fuses, or with breakers that are no longer made, are hard to maintain and often don't give the protection modern installations need. Missing RCD protection. Most socket-outlet circuits now need 30mA RCD protection. Older boards often have none, or one RCD protecting everything, so a single fault trips the whole board. Nuisance tripping. Frequent tripping can point to faults on circuits, but it can also mean the board's layout or protection no longer suits how the building is...

By Kenny Cook EngTech TMIET Most businesses put off electrical upgrades for one reason: they can't afford to switch everything off. The good news is that with the right planning, most upgrades can be done while the building stays open. Here's how we approach it. Start with a survey Before anything is priced, the contractor needs to understand what's there: the incoming supply, the main switchboard, the distribution boards, what each one feeds and what absolutely cannot lose power. An up-to-date EICR helps a lot here. If the drawings and charts are missing or out of date, putting that right is usually the first job. Find out what can't go off Every building has things that need to stay on: servers and comms rooms, tills and card machines, fridges and freezers, fire alarms, lifts, security systems and production equipment. List them early. Once we know what's critical, we can plan around it, whether that's keeping those circuits live, moving them to a temporary supply, or scheduling their changeover for a quiet time. Break the work into phases Instead of one big shutdown, the work is split into small sections, often one distribution board or one floor at a time. Each...