An unsatisfactory EICR is not a disaster and it does not mean a rewire. It means the report found one or more C1 or C2 items, and those have to be put right for the installation to be signed off as satisfactory.
Most of what turns up is the same handful of things, and most of it is cheaper than people fear. This guide runs through the remedials we actually find in Yorkshire and Lancashire homes, what each one involves, and what it costs in 2026.
The 30-second answer
| Common remedial | Typical 2026 cost |
|---|---|
| Main protective bonding to gas or water | £150–£400 depending on the run |
| CPC (earth) connections at accessories | Priced by the number of points, often £200–£600 for a whole house |
| Replace a damaged socket, switch or pull cord | £90–£150 per accessory |
| Consumer unit replacement (RCBO protection throughout) | From £875 |
| Full rewire, if the wiring has genuinely had its day | From £4,500 |
Those are guides, not quotes. The only honest price comes after someone has read your actual report, because the same code can mean ten minutes of work in one house and a day in another.
Which codes have to be fixed
Only C1, C2 and FI make a report unsatisfactory. C3 is "improvement recommended" and fails nothing — you can leave a C3 alone for as long as you like. The full breakdown is in our guide to what an EICR is and what the codes mean.
Watch for C3 items priced as though they were C2. A reputable electrician lists remedials against the code from the report, so you can see exactly what is required and what is optional.
The remedials we find most often
1. Missing or undersized main protective bonding
This is the single most common C2 in older housing stock. Main bonding is the green and yellow cable that connects your incoming gas and water pipework back to the earth bar in the consumer unit. It keeps all the metalwork in the house at the same potential, so that under fault conditions you cannot become the path between a live pipe and earth.
In houses wired before the mid-1980s it is often missing altogether, or it is a thin 6mm cable where 10mm is now required for most domestic supplies.
Cost depends almost entirely on the distance and the route. A stop tap a metre from the board is an hour's work. A kitchen sink at the far end of the house can mean forty or fifty metres of cable, and the sensible route is often outside the building in trunking, so nothing is chased into finished walls. That is a different day's work and a different price.
2. No CPC at the back boxes
The CPC, the circuit protective conductor, is the earth. In a lot of older properties the metal back boxes behind sockets and switches were never earthed, or the earth was left loose in the box rather than connected.
It matters because a metal faceplate or a metal box that is not earthed will not blow the fuse or trip the breaker if a live conductor ever touches it. It will just sit there live.
Putting it right means going round the property, pulling each accessory off, making off the CPC properly and testing. It is not difficult work, but it is slow, and on a house where most of the accessories need it the labour is what you are paying for.
3. No RCD protection
Anything buried in a wall less than 50mm deep, plus sockets, plus any circuit serving a bathroom, needs RCD protection under the current edition of the wiring regulations. An old board with rewireable fuses has none.
You can sometimes add protection to individual circuits, but on a board that old it is usually better value to replace the consumer unit outright, so every circuit gets its own RCBO. Our consumer unit replacement cost guide covers what that involves.
4. Damaged or unsuitable accessories
Cracked sockets, scorched faceplates, a bathroom pull cord that has stopped working properly, a light fitting with no earth terminal. These are usually quick, and often the cheapest line on the whole list.
5. Undersized or deteriorated cable
This is the one that costs real money. Rubber-insulated cable from the 1950s and 60s, or fabric-covered wiring, is at the end of its life and no amount of remedial work changes that. If the report codes the cable itself rather than the accessories, you are into rewire territory, either partial or full.
Why a new board can bring faults to the surface
This surprises people, so it is worth explaining before it happens rather than afterwards.
An old board with rewireable fuses is extremely tolerant. It will carry on quite happily with damp in a circuit, a deteriorated cable or a slow leak to earth, and you would never know from the way the house behaves.
A modern board is the opposite. Every circuit has its own RCBO, which detects exactly those faults and trips. That is the board doing its job. But it does mean faults that have been sitting quietly for years announce themselves the moment the new board goes in.
That is the whole reason we recommend the EICR first and the board second. Do it the other way round and you get a bad day: new board fitted, circuits tripping, and nobody able to say whether it is the board or the wiring. Do it in the right order and everything found is priced and understood before a single cable is disturbed.
How remedials should be quoted
- Against the report. Each item should be traceable to an observation and a code, not a vague "remedial works" line.
- C2 and C3 separated. You should be able to see what is required and what is optional, and decide on the optional items yourself.
- A fixed price where possible. Some items genuinely cannot be priced until an accessory comes off the wall. Those should be flagged as such rather than guessed at.
- A new certificate at the end. Once the C1 and C2 items are cleared, you should get either a satisfactory EICR or the certification covering the work done, depending on what was carried out.
You are also entitled to take your report to a different electrician for the remedial work. A firm that is confident in its inspection will not mind.
Landlords: the 28-day rule
In England, if a rented property's EICR is unsatisfactory, the remedial work has to be completed within 28 days, or sooner if the report says so, and written confirmation given to the tenants and the council. Wales and Scotland have equivalent duties. Our landlord electrical safety checklist sets out the whole cycle.
The bottom line
An unsatisfactory report usually means bonding, earthing or RCD protection rather than anything catastrophic. Fix the C1 and C2 items, consider the C3s on their merits, and get the work quoted against the report itself so you can see what you are paying for. In most homes the whole list comes to considerably less than people expect — and it is money spent on the things that actually keep the house safe.
Had an unsatisfactory EICR? Send it over
We will read the report, price the remedials item by item against the codes, and tell you plainly what is required and what is optional. NAPIT registered (78906). TrustMark Gov-Endorsed. Across Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Burnley, Blackburn, Preston and the M62 corridor.
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