EICR Certificates in Northwood

EICR Certificates in Northwood: what is different here

Houses older than the mains supply

The first Frithwood houses went up after the Metropolitan Railway reached Northwood in 1887, before most homes had mains electricity. Every circuit in them is a later addition, and in practice the installation is the sum of several campaigns: a mid-century rewire, a kitchen and en suite added later, a loft room and a garden office more recently. An inspector has to find and test all of it, which in a house of this size means sub-boards in garages, circuits to outbuildings and cables buried in walls replastered more than once.

We sample enough of each era to judge it fairly and record anything we could not reach as a limitation, so you know exactly what has and has not been seen.

What Hillingdon's licence asks of the wiring

Hillingdon's proposed HMO conditions are specific about electrics. The licence holder must keep every installation safe and in proper working order, give the council a declaration of its safety on demand, and supply a periodic report covering the whole installation, no more than five years old, within 28 days of a request.

Items coded C1 and C2 must be put right within 28 days of the report. If your Northwood house has a report that is four and a half years old, renew it before applying rather than straight after.

• One report covering every floor and outbuilding the tenants use
• No more than five years old when the council asks
• C1 and C2 items remedied within 28 days of the report
• Written confirmation of the remedial work kept with the report

Three storeys: emergency lighting and interlinked alarms

Many Northwood houses big enough to work as shared homes have a second floor or a converted loft. Hillingdon's application asks for an emergency lighting certificate only where the property has three or more storeys, and a fire alarm certificate to BS 5839-6, dated within the last 12 months, for every application. Those are separate documents from the EICR, and an electrical inspection does not produce them by default.

The proposed conditions also want smoke alarms interlinked, by wiring or wirelessly, so an alarm on the top floor is heard in the kitchen. Plan the three so they fall in the same week, and tell us when you book which of them you already hold.

Electric-only flats around the station

In the 2021 Census, 9.7% of households in the Northwood area (Hillingdon 002) heated their homes by electricity alone, more than double the 4.5% in Northwood Hills. In a flat heated this way, storage or panel heaters and an immersion cylinder all hang off the tenant's own consumer unit. That makes the EICR the main safety document for the flat, and it shifts the inspector's attention to heavy fixed loads on dedicated circuits, the immersion and its controls, and the condition of any off-peak supply.

Landlord lighting in the hallways, the entry phone and the communal alarm belong to the freeholder and sit outside your report.

Moor Park and Ducks Hill: long supplies to the garden

On the big plots of Moor Park and the Ducks Hill side of Northwood, the installation often reaches well past the house: a supply to a pool plant room, a gym at the end of the garden, lights along a long drive, motors on electric gates. If the landlord provides them, they are part of the fixed installation the report must cover.

Buried cable nicked by later digging, outdoor sockets without RCD protection and junction boxes that have let in water are typical findings out there. If tenants are not meant to use an outbuilding, isolate and label its supply and tell us, so the report records it correctly.

Codes, deadlines and copies for a Northwood tenancy

Amendment 4 to BS 7671 changed how FI codes work: an FI by itself no longer turns the overall result unsatisfactory. The legal clock has not moved, though, and where the report says further investigation is required the 2020 regulations allow 28 days to carry it out. In a large house where some junctions sit under fixed floors, that wording matters, so read the observation, not only the code.

Existing tenants need a copy within 28 days of the inspection and new tenants before they move in. Note one difference: the national regulations give you seven days to send the report to the council if it asks, which is shorter than the 28 days in Hillingdon's licence condition.

Official sources

• Hillingdon Council: apply for an additional HMO licence (documents required)
• Hillingdon Council: proposed HMO licensing conditions (Appendix 2 to the Cabinet report)
• legislation.gov.uk: Electrical Safety Standards Regulations 2020, regulation 3
• Nomis: Census 2021 TS046 central heating, Northwood and Northwood Hills MSOAs
• Moor Park (1958) Ltd: history of the estate

Last reviewed October 2026 by EliteShires Property Services.