[Closed] EV - charge point query + thinking of cancelling the EV car

Related as need to get a EV charge point installed in the next few months. My gas meter isn't earth bonded, and has been flagged as such by BG during routine service. The fusebox/incoming elec supply is nowhere near the gas supply (about 10m away through several rooms.) There are no underfloor spaces (solid floor) and a 18" solid stone wall in places. Assume that the gas main will need to be bonded, but not sure how they would do it without running trunking everywhere (which would look terrible.)

Don't think our EV charger has an isolation switch?

Re electricity prices we are paying about 1-1.2p a mile for most of our driving. That can go up a fair bit before becoming a problem.

Mine was cheap and simple years ago too - lower grants, the need for "smart" charge points and new editions of the electrical regs make it a lot more expensive now.

Isolating switch should be free or very cheap unless something has changed, and worth doing as it makes any other electrical work easier later on (electricians just pulling the main fuse is frowned on these days). Don't know about the oil tank, is it reachable with the cable from the charge point?

Can't see it getting any cheaper in the future though, so while you could use a 3-pin, if you're staying in that house long term it's worth doing.

Electricity is more expensive but even at the new 28p/unit capped rate it's still way cheaper than using petrol or diesel, and time-of-use tariffs (pay less off-peak) will become more common too.

Sounds like you have a bit of a jobsworth installer, to be honest. When I had my charge point installed the electrician said he barely looked at the main fuse and it "fell out".

Oil tank bonding seems a weird requirement. It might indeed need it (assuming copper pipe to tank from house) but how it's relevant to an EV charger I don't know.

Bulb have said the isolation switch will be £150 to install but cant be done until the end of April at the earliest.

The oil tank is a good 30 metres from where the car charge point will be at the other end of the property.

The oil tank was only fitted last year and met all the regs for that an we have the certificate.

Anyhow as it stands we have sent a request to cancel the EV, and keep the existing lease car for another year.

By then hopefully there will be a better option than EV's or petrol vehicles will be available again/2nd hand prices dropped.

I’m guessing they want an isolator fitted as they want to sptit the main tails to fit a second fuse board for the car charger so they don’t have to touch the original installation, also needs to be on a type A rcd which might not be available for your existing board. Personally I’m happy to pull the main fuse to do that but some aren’t.

With the oil tank, if it feeds the house in a plastic pipe then you can just sink an Earth rod next to it to bond it.

I had the house re-wired when we bought it 2 years ago.
Had an EV charger installed just before Xmas, installer had to take photos of the existing bonding on water and gas supplies. This was all part of his bit, so he could get certificate for the installation. I guess there is a fine line between jobsworth and competent installer. At the end of the day it their name on the cert if anything happens.

sounds a right bsllache - think I'll be sticking to our plan of keeping the current petrol and deisel cars until they are only good for scrap in approx 10 years

Our installer wanted an isolation switch fitted to the supply; it didn't cost us anything but time and faff, but then when the guy actually turned up to fit it he didn't use it anyway!

I used Mr Charger for our recent charge point installation: https://info.mrcharger.co.uk/ev-charging?gclid=EAIaIQobChMInr6Jx9Xy9QIVB7btCh2PJgpLEAAYASAAEgLgkvD_BwE

They were offering about 2 weeks lead time down here in the South East.

Ours had an isolating switch/breaker installed during installation. Our tank (which enters the house close to the charger) is also earthed.

We paid £900 (minus the £500 grant) for a Zappi with a 5m tethered cable. It took him 4 hours to install and was a VERY methodical professional installer.

podpoint - 600quid all in, that included a mini consumer unit just to isolate the charger.

Pod Point are a complete shambles of a company to deal with. Started the ball rolling back in November and they’ve been trying to wriggle out of it since. Only going with them as it’s paid for courtesy of Audi, but reading the small print only 15m worth of cabling, 3 m of trunking, one wall drilled only, no below floor routing, and they won’t even move a washing machine. Any work over 3.5 hours is charged at £65/hour. Ive done all the ducting from the consumer unit to the garage myself for the solar inverter so I’ve suggested that I’ll fit the cable and leave the connection to them. Doubt I’ll hear back from them.

I paid a local electrician company to do mine, not a big supplier. They recommended an Ohme charger which is great, cost £700 before grant. I selected them having googled "EV charger installation <my town>" and their website said they had experience doing it.

I’ll be sticking to our plan of keeping the current petrol and deisel cars until they are only good for scrap in approx 10 years

That is, of course, the most responsible and least environmentally damaging option.

Kudos.

That is, of course, the most responsible and least environmentally damaging option.

That was my plan, they both got to about 15 years until one was crashed and one.. well.. let's just say it started to have a negative impact on my state of mind 😆

You could always have a Commando socket fitted for all those power tools/fare ground rides and then buy an OHME charger for it.

You do know that an ordinary Electrician can install a charge point?

£300 for the unit https://www.amazon.co.uk/QUBEV-CHARGING-UNIT-TYPE-SOCKET/dp/B07WW6ZWVN

And then the electrician's time and consumables. Should be doable for £600 all in even if the spark charges half a day.

Pod Point came and installed our charger but wouldn’t enable it until I had the gas meter earthed and the water in pipe. Gas was easy as they had installed an isolator for the charger so it connected to that. An earth rod sorted the water out as the pipe ran under a concentrate floor.

That charger from Amazon is superb! Especially like the bit under common problems that says ‘Pins aren't latching - Make sure to use considerable force when plugging in the cable and wiggle until the pins make a full strong connection’

@Drac I’d be interested to know on the paperwork what what type of incoming supply you have is, as an Earth rod system within touch distance of TN system is really quite dangerous

to be fair I had reservations with PodPoint, you pay them the 600 quid before they do the site survey, if there are surprises you can cancel and get it back but I suspect it may not be as easy as they make out. I was fairly confident our installation was dead simple, it was but I did have a quote approaching £2k (and that was with the grant 😮 )

I have a i3s and intended to get a charge point fitted but never got round to it as I find the external 3 pin socket I fitted to be more than up to the job. Plug it in when you get home and it'll be charged in the morning.

Bad for the battery though.

I think I paid £450 and there were a couple of grants on top.
Fairly simple install, including an earthing rod with a cable run of about 10 m.
That was in 2019.

Bad for the battery though.

Slow charge is good for the battery, but leaving it to charge to 100% is bad for it. A time-clock on the socket would fix that.

I had a Zappi fitted to make best use of my solar panels; my garage is full of other things so the car is outside which makes 3 pin socket more difficult. About £900 including 5m of cable clipped to the wall and 5m buried. Local electrician company who do charge points as a main product, ordered just before Christmas and fitted 4th January.

but leaving it to charge to 100% is bad for it. A time-clock on the socket would fix that.

Not if it were partially charged when you plugged it in.

Anyway, most cars have charge settings inside so you can control the charging even if your charger doesn't. And some cars also never let you charge to 100%. An indicated 100% on a Hyundai is not actually 100% so you do what you want.

I own a company that installs 5-600 charge points a year and I’m one of the principal designers. We don’t touch domestic but they use the same regs. The earth for the oil tank is a bond back to the main earth of the supply. It should be in anyway. The bonding has to be in place to install an EV charger, the majority of UK systems are TNCS and a car charger cannot be conceited directly to this without some other protective device. The risk is if the local transformer loses a neutral that the whole electrical load of that area could in theory go through the metal bodywork of your car and when you touch it you get the whole lot through your body to earth which wouldn’t end well. The reality is with a lost neutral it would be found out before this but still we have to design for it. It isn’t an issue in other countries that don’t use our method of earthing.
The other option is to put the charger on its own earth rod and not connect to the main earth, this is fine so long as you can’t touch the two earth systems together….people do hoover their electric cars out while plugged in which could mix the two earth systems, the other option is to use a relatively new unit called an open neutral detection device. These simplify matters but cost around £140.
The paperwork for the grant is around 40 pages of govt bollox. A charger could cost £300 plus £140-£200 for materials. Then an hour or two for certification and grant claim. Good sparkies are paid £200-£350 a day. One charger job with an open neutral or an earth rod could take 3-6 hours plus travel if easy. It’s a days work minimum done properly so not far off a £1000 job. Add in dealing with the public and it’s not worthwhile for companies like us who are commercial installers, you end up with companies like podpoint paying installers £100 a job and that’s why you get crap work and service.
I’ve been in the industry years and wouldn’t know who to recommend for a domestic job so feel your pain.