Victorian houses, many now flats
A third of Lewisham's homes were built before 1919, and many of the larger ones no longer house a single family. The council's appraisal of Brockley describes streets built mostly in the 1870s and 1880s, where many houses once shared by several families have since been converted into self-contained flats. At the 2021 Census, one household in six lived in a converted or shared house.
Conversions raise their own questions for an EICR. Each flat should have its own supply, consumer unit and report, but older conversions can still share parts of an installation, such as a cable route through another flat or a hallway light fed from one flat's circuit. An inspection in a converted house usually checks:
- that each flat's circuits are separate from its neighbours';
- the consumer unit and its RCD protection, which cuts the supply in a fraction of a second if current leaks to earth;
- earthing, and bonding where pipework is shared or has been replaced;
- wiring in basements and loft rooms created during the conversion.
The interwar cottage estates
In the south of the borough, the London County Council built cottage estates after the First World War. The main part of Bellingham was finished in 1923, and Downham added 7,000 homes between 1924 and 1930, mostly two-storey houses with gardens. A century on, these houses have usually been rewired and often extended, so the inspection follows every later circuit, from kitchen extensions to loft rooms and sheds, back to the consumer unit.
Letting a property in Lewisham
Almost every private let here needs a licence, and the council won't process an application without a valid EICR. Behind that sits the national rule: private landlords in England must have the electrical installation inspected and tested at least every five years by a qualified and competent person, share the report with their tenants, and sort out any C1 or C2 items, along with any further investigation the report requests, within 28 days or sooner if the report says so. Council penalties for breaches can reach £40,000.
