Commercial fixed wire testing in Nottingham is a circuit-by-circuit inspection of the permanent wiring in your building — the distribution boards, the circuits in the walls, and the sockets, switches and light fittings on the end of them. The power goes off in sections as the engineer works round the premises rather than for the whole visit, so most small businesses keep trading through it. You are left holding an Electrical Installation Condition Report, or EICR, listing whatever was found and coding it by how urgently it needs attention. The part nobody explains well is the day itself: how much of the building loses power, for how long, and what needs sorting before anyone arrives. That is what this covers. How often yours is due is a separate question, answered in our guide to how often a commercial property needs an EICR . What does commercial fixed wire testing in Nottingham involve? Fixed wire testing and a commercial EICR are the same thing under two names. "Fixed wire" means the installation permanently built into the building, as opposed to the kettle, the till or the printer — those are portable appliances, covered by PAT testing , a separate job with a separate certificate. A quote for one when you needed the other is the most common mix-up we untangle. The inspection is carried out against BS 7671, the UK wiring standard published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. It is work for a qualified, registered electrician — it means working inside distribution boards, proving circuits dead and applying test instruments to live ones — and not something a facilities team, a landlord or a shop manager should take on. The Health and Safety Executive is the authority on electrical safety duties at work. What happens on the day, step by step? A typical visit to a Nottingham shop, office or small unit runs in this order. • A walk round, and a plan. The engineer finds every distribution board, works out what feeds what, and asks what cannot lose power. The order of the day is agreed here, before anything is switched off. • The visual inspection. Nothing goes off for this. Boards, accessories, cable routes and fittings are examined for damage, overheating, missing covers, unsuitable equipment and alterations made since the last report. A surprising share of what ends up on an EICR is found at this stage. • Dead testing, circuit by circuit. One circuit is isolated, tested and put back before the next comes off. This is where your power interruptions happen — short bursts moving round the building, not one long shutdown. • Live testing. With the supply on, the engineer measures how quickly protective devices would disconnect in a fault and tests the RCDs. Expect a few deliberate trips. • Extent and limitations. On a large installation not every point is tested. What proportion was sampled, and anything that could not be reached or safely switched off, is agreed with you and written on the report. • A debrief before the van leaves. Anything dangerous is told to you on the day, not saved for the paperwork. How long will the power be off? It depends on how many circuits you have, not how big the floor is. A small Sherwood shop or a single-board office with a dozen circuits is a half-day job, and no individual circuit is off for more than a few minutes at a time. A multi-board site — a unit with a workshop, a mezzanine and separate landlord supplies — is counted in days and is usually phased. So the useful question when you book is not "how long will you be here" but "how many boards and roughly how many circuits". That number sets both the time on site and the price, and any contractor who has surveyed the place can tell you. A whole-building shutdown is rare, and if one is genuinely needed you should hear about it when the work is quoted, not on the morning. Will my business have to close? Usually not. Between phasing the work area by area, scheduling evenings or a weekend, and planning around the few things that genuinely cannot be interrupted, most Nottingham retail and office premises stay open. What needs flagging in advance: servers and network cabinets, refrigeration and chilled or frozen stock, any care or medical equipment, electric shutters and door entry, alarms and CCTV, and any machine part-way through a timed process. None of these makes testing impossible — they just have to be on the plan rather than discovered at three o’clock. How should I prepare the premises for fixed wire testing? Everything on this list is yours to do and none of it involves touching the electrics. Work down it in the week before the visit. • Find the boards and unlock them. Intake cupboard, riser, stockroom, cleaner’s cupboard. Clear whatever is stacked in front. A locked or buried board is the most common reason one visit becomes two. • Write down what cannot lose power — and send it before the day, not on it. Servers, chillers, anything with stock or data at risk. • Dig out the last report, board schedules and any drawings, plus any electrical work done since: a new kitchen, an EV charger, a partition with sockets in it. • Check that UPS units and backup batteries are actually charged. They stand between a brief isolation and a lost afternoon. • Tell your staff a day ahead, so work gets saved and nobody is mid-transaction when a circuit drops. • Note anything you have already noticed. A scorched socket, a cracked switch plate, a fitting hanging loose since the last tenant, a breaker that trips every few weeks. Look, do not touch, and do not open anything — write it down and hand it over. Local knowledge finds intermittent faults a single day of testing can miss. • Have someone on site with keys and authority for the whole visit, including access to shared or tenanted areas in a multi-let building. That is where your part stops. Anything past the front of a board — opening it, isolating it, testing it — belongs to the electrician. What do I get at the end? An Electrical Installation Condition Report, declared either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, with a schedule of the items found, a schedule of test results, and the extent and limitations agreed on the day. Findings are coded C1, C2, C3 or FI, and those codes decide what happens next — we have set out what C1, C2, C3 and FI actually mean in full. An unsatisfactory result is not a judgement on your business, and it is not unusual in a building added to over twenty years. It means specific items need putting right, each one identified. Remedial work is quoted separately, and you are entitled to take that quote elsewhere. Ask when the report will arrive — a few working days is normal — and keep it somewhere you can find it, because the next inspection starts by reading the last one. Frequently asked questions What decides how long commercial fixed wire testing takes? The number of circuits and distribution boards, not the floor area. Each circuit is isolated and tested individually, so a single-board office with a dozen circuits is a half-day and a multi-board industrial unit runs across several. Ask any contractor quoting to tell you the board and circuit count they have allowed for. Will the whole building lose power during fixed wire testing? Not normally. Circuits are isolated one at a time and restored before the next comes off, so interruptions are short and local rather than a single long shutdown. Some installations do need a full isolation for part of the work. If yours is one, that should be established when the job is quoted and planned around, not sprung on you. Can fixed wire testing be done outside business hours? Yes, and for retail and hospitality premises it is often the sensible choice. Evening and weekend working is routine for commercial inspection, and phasing the site over several shorter visits is another option. Both need arranging when the work is booked, because they change how the days are planned and how the job is priced. What happens if something dangerous is found during the test? You are told on the day rather than in the report a week later. Where a fault presents an immediate risk, the electrician will explain what it is and what making it safe involves, which may mean isolating one circuit until it can be repaired. Remedial work is quoted separately and you are free to take that quote elsewhere. What should I have ready before the electrician arrives? Unlocked and clear access to every distribution board, a list of anything that must not lose power, the previous report and any board schedules, charged UPS units, staff told a day ahead, and someone on site with keys for the whole visit. None of it requires touching the electrical installation — leave that to the electrician. Commercial fixed wire testing with Somo Electrical Somo Electrical is a NAPIT-registered contractor (registration 33320) carrying out electrical testing and inspection and wider commercial electrical work for businesses across Nottingham, including Sherwood and the city centre. We will survey the premises, tell you the board and circuit count before you commit, and plan the day so you can keep trading wherever that is possible. Call 07733 666004 or use the quote form on the site. Sources checked 18 September 2026: the day-of process, disruption planning and preparation steps describe established commercial inspection practice, cross-checked against live search results dated today including published UK fixed wire testing guides. GOV.UK, HSE, legislation.gov.uk and Electrical Safety First could not be opened from this environment on this run, so this article deliberately makes no claim about inspection intervals or statutory duties — for those see the Health and Safety Executive at hse.gov.uk and our guide on commercial EICR frequency. BS 7671 is referenced generally; the IET publishes the current edition. No prices are stated here and nothing above is a quote. Not legal advice.