How Wigan Electricians Can Use AI to Write Test Certificates and Completion Reports

You're a Wigan electrician. You spend roughly 40 minutes on-site completing an EICR at a rented property in Ince-in-Makerfield. The actual inspection takes two hours. Writing up the report, including the observations section, the limitations, the overall condition code, and the covering letter to the landlord, takes another 45 minutes back at home that evening. By the time you're done, the day's work has extended into family time and you've still got two Minor Works certificates to complete.

Multiply that across a week of mixed jobs, and paperwork is consuming a significant chunk of the working week. For many electricians, report writing is the most disliked part of the job, not because it's difficult, but because it's slow, repetitive, and drains energy after a physical day on-site.

AI tools cut this time substantially without changing the quality or compliance of the documentation.

What Electrical Reports Actually Involve

The main documents a domestic electrician produces regularly are:

Electrical Installation Condition Reports (EICRs): Required every five years for rented properties. Includes inspection results, test data, observations coded C1 to C3 (or FI for further investigation), and an overall condition assessment of satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

Electrical Installation Certificates (EICs): Issued for new installations or significant alterations. Requires signatures from both the designer and the installer (which can be the same person for sole traders).

Minor Works Certificates: Issued for smaller additions to an existing installation, such as adding a socket, fitting a new lighting circuit, or replacing a consumer unit where the design is straightforward.

Completion reports: Written summaries sent to clients, landlords, or letting agents alongside the technical certificate. These explain in plain English what was found, what was done, and what (if anything) requires further attention.

The completion report is where AI saves the most time. The technical certificate has standardised fields that must be filled in accurately from your test results. The written sections, particularly the observations and the client-facing summary, are where AI tools make a real difference.

Using Otter.ai for On-Site Voice Notes

Otter.ai is a voice-to-text transcription app that runs on your phone. Rather than scribbling notes during an inspection or trying to remember observations when you're back at the desk, you talk through what you're finding as you work.

Walking around a property doing an EICR, you might say: "Kitchen circuits: sockets tested, all satisfactory. Noted that the cooker circuit has no RCD protection, condition code C2. Bathroom: pull-cord switch showing signs of heat discolouration, recommend replacement, C2. Consumer unit: original installation approximately 1985, no RCD protection on any circuit, overall board unsatisfactory."

Otter.ai transcribes this in real time. When you're back in the van, you have a text record of every observation from the inspection. This becomes the raw material for both your certificate observations and your client-facing report.

Otter.ai's free plan covers 300 minutes of transcription per month. For most electricians, that's sufficient. The paid plan, at around £10 per month, removes the monthly cap.

Turning Rough Notes into Polished Report Text with ChatGPT

Once you have transcribed notes from Otter.ai, ChatGPT turns them into properly worded report observations in seconds.

Here's an example of the input (voice note transcript):

"Consumer unit original from around 1985, no RCD protection anywhere in the installation. Kitchen ring main tested okay but no RCD. Bathroom circuit: pull cord switch looking heat damaged. Recommend replacing. Outside socket: no RCD protection and it's a standard socket not weatherproof. Shower circuit: correct cable size but the circuit breaker is the wrong rating, 32A breaker on a 45A shower."

And the prompt:

"Turn these inspection notes into properly worded EICR observation entries suitable for a domestic electrical inspection report in line with BS 7671:2018. For each issue, include a brief description, the relevant regulation reference if applicable, and the appropriate condition code (C1, C2, C3, or FI). Write in a formal technical style."

The output from ChatGPT:

Observation 1 - Consumer Unit: Absence of RCD Protection The existing consumer unit, original to the installation and approximately 40 years old, provides no RCD protection to any circuits within the installation. This presents a significant risk of electric shock in the event of an earth fault. Condition Code: C2. Recommended action: Replace consumer unit with a compliant dual-RCD or RCBO-fitted board in accordance with BS 7671:2018 Regulation 415.1.

Observation 2 - Bathroom: Heat-Damaged Pull-Cord Switch The pull-cord switch serving the bathroom lighting circuit shows visible signs of heat discolouration on the switch body, indicating previous overloading or arcing. Condition Code: C2. Recommended action: Replace immediately.

Observation 3 - External Socket: Inadequate Protection The external socket outlet is not of weatherproof construction and is not protected by an RCD, contrary to BS 7671:2018 Regulation 411.3.3. Condition Code: C2. Recommended action: Replace with a weatherproof (IP rated) socket and provide RCD protection.

Observation 4 - Shower Circuit: Incorrect Overcurrent Protection The circuit protective device serving the shower circuit is rated at 32A. Given the shower appliance rating, the overcurrent protection is insufficient. Condition Code: C2. Recommended action: Replace circuit breaker with the correct rating for the installed shower load.

That output is ready to paste directly into your EICR template. Each observation is correctly worded, includes a condition code, and references the relevant regulation. Writing that from scratch would take fifteen minutes. AI produces it in about thirty seconds.

Drafting Client-Facing Covering Letters

The technical certificate goes to the landlord. So does a covering letter or email that explains the findings in plain English. This is particularly important for EICR results that come back unsatisfactory, because landlords need to understand what remedial work is required and in what timeframe.

ChatGPT writes these letters well. Give it the summary of findings and ask it to produce a plain English covering letter for a landlord. The output explains the condition codes, sets out the required remedial work, confirms the timescales under the regulations (28 days for C1 and C2 items on rental properties), and directs the landlord to contact you for a quote on the remedial work.

Producing a professional covering letter alongside the technical certificate makes your service look thorough and protects you legally by demonstrating that you clearly communicated the findings.

Digital Certificate Tools

For the technical certificate itself, several dedicated apps exist. CertCapture, the NICEIC app, and similar tools let you complete test results on a tablet or phone on-site, then generate a signed PDF certificate that can be emailed directly to the client.

These tools replace the paper forms and eliminate the data entry step of transcribing test results from paper to a computer at the end of the day. The certificate is generated on-site and the job is documented immediately.

For landlords managing properties across Wigan town centre and Golborne, receiving the certificate the same day as the inspection rather than a week later signals a professional operation. It also reduces the back-and-forth of landlords chasing certificates before they can provide them to tenants or local authorities.

A Combined Workflow

Put the tools together and the workflow for a single EICR looks like this:

On-site: use Otter.ai on your phone to record observations as you work
In the van: complete the test results sections in your digital cert app
Back at the desk (or on your lunch break): paste Otter.ai transcript into ChatGPT, generate observation text, copy into the cert app
Generate and send the PDF certificate and covering letter from the cert app

A job that previously required 45 minutes of evening paperwork now takes 15-20 minutes, most of which is reviewing and lightly editing the AI-generated text rather than writing from scratch. Across a week with four or five EICRs, that's two hours returned to your evening.