Covering Wimborne, run from a Poole base
EICR Wimborne: the market town and its villages, covered for electrical safety testing
EICRs in Wimborne from £160
A cottage just off the Square with wiring older than the shop beneath it. A new-build on the edge of Colehill. A farmhouse near Pamphill that has not been tested in decades. One fixed price, decided by circuit count alone.
On this page: Prices · From Poole · Areas · Old cottages · Pamphill & the estate · What we test · Who needs one · Your own home · On the day · Codes · Questions · Related
What a Wimborne EICR costs
Every Wimborne EICR is priced off one thing only: the number of circuits on the board. Nothing else about the property comes into it, so a Victorian terrace off the Square and a 1990s estate house in Colehill pay the same figure once the circuit count matches.
| Circuits | Typical property | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 6 | 1 bed flat | £160 |
| 7 to 10 | 2 to 3 bed home | £210 |
| 11 to 15 | 4 to 5 bed home | £265 |
| 16 or more | Shared house or large property | £345 covers 16, then £20 for each extra circuit |
Two things never count towards the total: the incoming main switch, and a surge protection device if one is fitted. Everything else on the board, one switch to a circuit, is what sets your band. A second board, say feeding a Pamphill outbuilding or a garage conversion near Colehill, joins the first board's count rather than opening a second job.
Old fuse box still in there? £675 fits a modern board with the EICR included
That figure covers a new consumer unit with surge protection, properly tested, and folds the EICR itself into the same fixed price rather than billing the two separately. More on the swap itself: fuseboard changes.
Working out of Poole, not a stranger to Wimborne
Dorset EICR runs out of Poole, where Pete is based full time; there has never been an office in Wimborne itself, and there will not be one. In practice that means a twenty minute run up through Broadstone and Merley, close enough that a gap opening up elsewhere in the diary often turns into a Wimborne slot at short notice, and close enough that the person who quotes the job is the same one who tests it, writes the report and comes back for any work it leads to. The one genuine difference is administrative: Wimborne falls under Dorset Council rather than the BCP area Poole sits in, though nobody has ever found that it changes a test or a price.
Wimborne, village by village
Wimborne is a market town with a ring of villages and smaller settlements around it, each with its own mix of old and new.
Wimborne Minster. The town itself, named for the Minster church at its centre. The streets around it hold some of the oldest housing stock in this part of Dorset, much of it rewired in stages rather than all at once.
Colehill. A larger residential area to the north, mixing older houses with newer estates built over the last forty or fifty years. Boards here vary a good deal from one street to the next.
Merley. Closer to the Poole border, with housing from several different decades. The Poole EICR page picks up the streets on the other side of that boundary.
Leigh Park. A newer estate on the edge of town, where boards tend to be younger but still worth a first test if nobody has one on file.
Canford Magna. A parish stretching toward Poole, with a scatter of older and rural properties alongside newer housing closer to the ring road.
Pamphill. A small, largely rural village right against the Kingston Lacy estate; its own section follows this list.
Lake, Oakley, Stanbridge and the smaller lanes around them are covered just the same, all off the one table, whatever the postcode happens to be.
Old cottages and the Square: wiring that has seen several owners
A good number of Wimborne's cottages and town centre buildings are old enough to have been rewired more than once, often by different hands in different decades. It is common to find a modern board feeding a mix of cable ages, or an extension wired separately from the original house and never properly tied into the same circuit list. None of that is unusual, and none of it changes the price, which still follows the circuit count on the day.
Where a building sits in the conservation area around the Square, an EICR itself needs no permission, since it is a test rather than building work. If the report finds something that needs fixing, and the property is listed, any visible alteration to fixed wiring may need a word with the council before work starts. That is a planning question for you to raise locally, separate from the report itself.
Pamphill, Kingston Lacy and the edge of town
Pamphill sits right against the Kingston Lacy estate, and the character of the village follows from that: a scatter of cottages, farmhouses and estate buildings rather than a dense street pattern. Properties out this way often have an outbuilding, a stable or a garden room fed from the main board, which pushes the circuit count up a little compared with a similar sized house in the town centre. We price whatever is actually on the board, rural or not, and we are happy to look at an outbuilding's own supply as part of the same visit.
Inside a Wimborne EICR visit
Nothing here is guessed or eyeballed. Each circuit goes through the same calibrated test set, checked against the one national wiring standard that applies whether the board sits in a Victorian cottage or a 1990s estate house:
- Condition and age of the board itself, and whether its protection still matches what is now expected of it.
- Insulation resistance and earth loop impedance on every circuit, read off test equipment rather than estimated.
- Trip speed on every RCD, measured with a timer, not just pressed and assumed to work.
- Outbuildings, stables and garden supplies, common on the rural fringe around Colehill, Canford Magna and Pamphill.
Three things a report never touches:
- Anything you plug into a socket, since that needs its own portable appliance test.
- Gas or oil heating, or the boiler.
- Any guarantee about how old cable will go on behaving after we leave.
What every reading actually means is explained fully on what an EICR is.
Who books a Wimborne EICR, and why
- Landlords, staying inside the five year legal limit on every rented property. Full detail sits at landlords and agents.
- Solicitors, buyers and sellers who need the electrics settled before a completion date is fixed. The full picture for a sale is on buying and selling.
- Owners of cottages and farmhouses who would rather have a report on file before something goes wrong than after.
No sale, no let, still worth testing
There is no legal reason to test a Wimborne home you live in with no plans to sell, yet plenty of owners book one anyway, usually over a light that flickers for no obvious reason, a board still carrying old fuse wire, or simply because nobody can find a test certificate anywhere in the house. What comes back is a straight list: everything sound is marked sound, everything else carries a code and a price, and the timing of any fix is entirely your call. Full detail on the home owners page. A switch that trips repeatedly for no clear reason needs tracing properly rather than guessed at, which is exactly what the fixed £149 fault finding visit is for.
How the visit itself runs
- We turn up at the time we booked. Flag anything awkward about parking near the Square or down a narrow lane when you book, not when we arrive.
- Cover off, eyes on the board first. Scorch marks, old fuse wire and loose connections get noted before a single test runs.
- Every circuit tested in turn, with a warning before anything is switched off.
- The report lands in your inbox, signed, with each code spelled out in full English words instead of a bare letter on a page.
Expect an hour or two for a straightforward town centre flat, and closer to a morning once outbuildings near Pamphill are added to the circuit count.
Reading your report: the four codes explained
Everything on a Wimborne EICR gets sorted into satisfactory or unsatisfactory, using one of four codes wherever a finding needs flagging:
- C1 Danger present. Always unsatisfactory, and we make it safe on the spot before packing up.
- C2 Potentially dangerous. Also unsatisfactory, and stays that way until the fix is done.
- C3 Improvement recommended. Noted for you to weigh up; the report still passes with one of these on it.
- FI Further investigation. Quoted on its own terms, and unsatisfactory while it stands open.
Old cottage wiring in Wimborne turns up a C1 more often than a newer estate does, usually a damaged cable or an exposed live part behind a fitting nobody had looked at in years. Anything dangerous gets isolated or made safe on the spot, before we pack the van, with a price for the fix noted on the report itself. Whether and when to act on it stays entirely your decision, never ours to make.
Questions about a Wimborne EICR
What home owners, cottage owners and landlords tend to ask before they book.
How far do you travel to reach Wimborne from Poole?
Around twenty minutes, usually through Broadstone and Merley on the A349 and A31. Wimborne sits in the Dorset Council area rather than the BCP area that covers Poole itself, though that boundary makes no difference to price or availability: the same fixed table and the same Saturday slots apply here as they do five minutes from home.
Every way to get hold of us is listed on the contact page.
What determines the price of a Wimborne EICR?
Circuit count decides it, nothing else: not the floor area, not the age of the cottage, not the postcode. Pick your band from the table above and that is the number we put in writing before anything is booked, and it stays fixed once the visit has started.
Build your own number on the quote page in under a minute.
My cottage near the Square is older than the shop below it. Does that change the price?
No, the price still follows the circuit count, not the age of the building. Older cottages in the town centre do tend to have been rewired in stages over the years, so two or three generations of cable can land on one board, which is something we look for during the test rather than something that changes what you pay upfront.
Do listed buildings or conservation area cottages need anything extra before an EICR?
An EICR itself does not need any permission, since it is a test of the existing wiring rather than building work. If the report turns up remedial work and the property is listed, any later alterations to fixed cabling may need separate consent from the council, which is a conversation for you and a planning officer rather than something the test itself involves.
We are moving into a farmhouse near Pamphill and have no idea when it was last tested. What should we do?
Book a test before you fill the place with furniture, while the board and the loft are still easy to reach. Rural properties like this sometimes have an outbuilding or a stable block fed from the same supply, so tell us about any of that when you book so the circuit count is right from the start.
Does Kingston Lacy or the wider estate affect how you work in Pamphill?
No, we test any domestic property in the area the same way, whether it sits on the estate or not. The main difference out that way is more rural properties with outbuildings and longer cable runs than you would find in a terrace nearer the town centre, which we account for in the circuit count rather than in the price structure itself.
Is Wimborne market day a problem for parking when you visit?
We avoid booking visits in the Square itself on market day where we can, and we always ask about parking when we confirm the appointment. Most Wimborne jobs are a short walk from a space nearby, and if access is awkward we would rather know on the phone than find out on the doorstep.
Will a C3 on my Wimborne report stop a sale going through?
No, and this catches people out: a C3 is advice, not a failure. What actually fails a report is danger, potential danger or something still needing further investigation, never a C3 on its own. A C3 still goes in writing so a solicitor or a buyer can read it for themselves, but acting on it is entirely up to you, on whatever timescale suits.
The buying and selling page goes into this in more depth.
Can you test a holiday cottage near Wimborne between guests?
Yes, without any trouble. Tell us the changeover window and the visit gets planned around it, the same as any other let we cover in Dorset. A cottage with a steady turn of guests tends to need testing more often than a home with one settled occupant, simply from the extra use kettles, heaters and hot tubs get.
Book your Wimborne EICR
Choose your circuit band above and the price is already settled before you call. Suggest a date that suits, farmhouse outbuildings and cottage conversions worked around as standard.