Which home charging point?

[Buzz84]

blank said:

I really like the idea of a 7kW dual charger that can balance 7kW between 2 vehicles.

Unfortunately I would not buy anything ProjectEV as they're very much a case of "buy cheap buy twice". They're rebranded ATESS units from China and the UK team know virtually nothing about how anything works.

If I was getting a charger now it would probably be an Ohme as they're most widely supported on smart tariffs.

I mentioned above we had a dual 22kw ProjectEV charger installed at work, they were quick and helpful to answer a couple of queries we had prior to buying it.
Once installed we had reason to get assistance from them and they were again very quick to sort out what we needed. (Our electrical supply wasn't good enough to supply full load initially, so they carried an over the air update to flash a special firmware that limits the unut to half power till we got the cables upgraded later). While it doesn't account for everyone's experience, I can't fault them.

Ohmes are just rebranded units from china too,

[CivicDuties]

Evanivitch said:

CivicDuties said:

Genuinely, hardly anybody needs fast charging at home.

7kW is fast charging.

You mean Rapid.

No, I meant what I said. I've got 3kw charging, had it for 7 years, even that is faster than I need really. When the average user is only doing 20 or so miles a day, even granny charging is plenty overnight in the vast majority of cases - most cars will be parked at home for 12 hours or more at a time.

But sure, 110+ mile a day users would want fast at home, but for most of us fast is a nice to have on the rare occasion you might need it, and even then there's the back up of going to a local rapid in those odd circumstances.

[Evanivitch]

CivicDuties said:

Evanivitch said:

CivicDuties said:

Genuinely, hardly anybody needs fast charging at home.

7kW is fast charging.

You mean Rapid.

No, I meant what I said. I've got 3kw charging, had it for 7 years, even that is faster than I need really. When the average user is only doing 20 or so miles a day, even granny charging is plenty overnight in the vast majority of cases - most cars will be parked at home for 12 hours or more at a time.

But sure, 110+ mile a day users would want fast at home, but for most of us fast is a nice to have on the rare occasion you might need it, and even then there's the back up of going to a local rapid in those odd circumstances.

You're applying your own experience, and ignoring the wider constraints.

People aren't charging for 12 hours. Ideally, the majority of charging will be between 10pm and 5am because that's when grid demand is lowest. Anyone charging at 6-7pm is often using highest cost (and carbon) energy from gas STOR plants. It's entirely possible that different houses on the same street will have different low-rate charging windows to balance the load on the local infrastructure. So again, having that 7kW charging gets the energy in.

And this conversation is about dual-head chargers, which are most unnecessary for majority of households because, as you said, most people aren't doing 100+ mile days in both household cars. So having one car charged each night is fine, and that might be only in a 4hr cheap charging window (about 25kWh delivered at 7kW).

Then there's the other scenarios where perhaps you've forgotten to plug in or had a failed scheduled charge, and need as much at 7kW as possible in that hour between waking up and leaving!

7kW/32A isn't a big deal at the moment, but I'm sure in future as we move to more electrical heating (and hot water) we'll see more and more load management in the household. Which is also where a 3-5kW home battery can help balance things, but personally I'd rather see better V2G implementation (and another reason why I'm in no rush to update my home charger).

[blank]

Buzz84 said:

blank said:

I really like the idea of a 7kW dual charger that can balance 7kW between 2 vehicles.

Unfortunately I would not buy anything ProjectEV as they're very much a case of "buy cheap buy twice". They're rebranded ATESS units from China and the UK team know virtually nothing about how anything works.

If I was getting a charger now it would probably be an Ohme as they're most widely supported on smart tariffs.

I mentioned above we had a dual 22kw ProjectEV charger installed at work, they were quick and helpful to answer a couple of queries we had prior to buying it.
Once installed we had reason to get assistance from them and they were again very quick to sort out what we needed. (Our electrical supply wasn't good enough to supply full load initially, so they carried an over the air update to flash a special firmware that limits the unut to half power till we got the cables upgraded later). While it doesn't account for everyone's experience, I can't fault them.

Ohmes are just rebranded units from china too,

Just adding some more opinions. I'm sure there are people that use them in "plug and charge" mode and have no issues.

"I" have spent over £300k on EV charging in the past couple of years, including ~£40k with ProjectEV. I could rant for ages on all the issues they have with OCPP compliance, chargers not meeting published specs, clueless tech support and various other things.

[CivicDuties]

Evanivitch said:

CivicDuties said:

Evanivitch said:

CivicDuties said:

Genuinely, hardly anybody needs fast charging at home.

7kW is fast charging.

You mean Rapid.

No, I meant what I said. I've got 3kw charging, had it for 7 years, even that is faster than I need really. When the average user is only doing 20 or so miles a day, even granny charging is plenty overnight in the vast majority of cases - most cars will be parked at home for 12 hours or more at a time.

But sure, 110+ mile a day users would want fast at home, but for most of us fast is a nice to have on the rare occasion you might need it, and even then there's the back up of going to a local rapid in those odd circumstances.

You're applying your own experience, and ignoring the wider constraints.

People aren't charging for 12 hours. Ideally, the majority of charging will be between 10pm and 5am because that's when grid demand is lowest. Anyone charging at 6-7pm is often using highest cost (and carbon) energy from gas STOR plants. It's entirely possible that different houses on the same street will have different low-rate charging windows to balance the load on the local infrastructure. So again, having that 7kW charging gets the energy in.

And this conversation is about dual-head chargers, which are most unnecessary for majority of households because, as you said, most people aren't doing 100+ mile days in both household cars. So having one car charged each night is fine, and that might be only in a 4hr cheap charging window (about 25kWh delivered at 7kW).

Then there's the other scenarios where perhaps you've forgotten to plug in or had a failed scheduled charge, and need as much at 7kW as possible in that hour between waking up and leaving!

7kW/32A isn't a big deal at the moment, but I'm sure in future as we move to more electrical heating (and hot water) we'll see more and more load management in the household. Which is also where a 3-5kW home battery can help balance things, but personally I'd rather see better V2G implementation (and another reason why I'm in no rush to update my home charger).

Yeah all good points, but I'm not ignoring anything - I'm fully aware of what you're saying. I just like to try to open people's minds to the possibility that they may not necessarily need the fastest charge rate possible, thereby maybe saving people some money by not over-speccing their installation. There's still a general received wisdom out there that EVs have worryingly short range and worryingly long charge times, and I'm just trying to add to the sum of knowledge and hopefully help open people's minds a bit and overcome some of the scare-mongering that exists around EVs.

[Wagonwheel555]

Got a Cupra Born on order, delivery in 2-4 weeks.

We are having a garage conversion done mid June (got an external garage already so internal one is redundant) and our CU is brand new in the garage currently so electrician is coming round Friday to take a look for an EV charger install.

Said its up to me which one we get but looking at the Ohme Home Pro with the 8m lead as it seems to have good reviews?

Looking at the Ovo cheap charging tariff at the moment too.

[SiH]

Buzz84 said:

105.4 said:

Thank you for that Buzz

My apologies, but I’m not an electrician, Ohms Law confuses me, and I am a bit thick.

Let me see if I understand the gist of what you are saying?

Is your concern that if one vehicle is plugged in and charging at 7kw/h, and then a second vehicle is plugged in and charging at 7kw/h, such a high flow rate of electricity could overload (trip?) the rest of the house now that 14kw/h is running through the charger?

Or have I missed your point here?

If I have understood you correctly, then the tech specs of the EVEC charger state that if a second vehicle is plugged in, the 7kw/h ‘flow’ is then split between both vehicles, so that they are each receiving 3.5kw/h.

No your not thick in any way, you follow exactly right.

I didn't check the specs of the EVEC charger to see that it shares the 7kw between the outlets, so in reality if you are going to select that charger you can probably ignore all of what I have said!
I did check and saw that the dual outlet ProjectEV charger is capable of charging two vehicles at 7kw each, so has a total requirement for 14Kw. (that's where it it important to research and check the specs!)

But to just build on it anyway as a form of explanation:

If we use an example of a 100A supply that means there is 23Kw of power incoming to the house, the Project EV dual charger example, that can take 14Kw, which leaves 9kw left to run the house.
Imagine the scene - you get home, you could do all sorts over the course of the evening. Stick the kettle on (3kw), stick the oven (3kw +), use the electric shower (3kw), put on the washing machine (1.5kw), it gets dark so the lights go on (less significant these days due to LEDs), tv and whatever else may go on.
While its not enough to trip the individual RCB's in the board it could all accumulate to over 100A and blow the main incoming fuse. and that's with an example of the 100A fuse, some properties can have 60A or 80A main fuses depending on the configuration of the power supply to the house.

Because of this some manufactures are including the ability for their chargers to connect to an energy monitor and can tell what the house is using so that it ramp back down and only uses the "spare" capacity to keep the total household use within the limits of the incoming supply.

Obviously now you have pointed out the EVEC charger splits the load 3.5/3.5 for dual charging and only ever totals 7kw its not going to be likely,

But with more and more cars being EV/PHEV, them getting bigger batteries requiring longer charge times, households having multiple cars converting over to them, etc etc. I can see that the demand for dual or multiple separate charger installs will increase and mean things like above will need to be considerations.

We were in a similar position with 2 EVs that were being used on a daily basis and with occasional long drives this meant that we needed to be able to easily charge both cars at the same time. No-one wants to see me strutting around on the drive in my dressing gown at 02:00 to swap cars on a single charger.

I looked at the dual chargers and we nearly went for a CTEK Chargestorm Connected 2 https://www.ctek.com/uk/ev-charging/chargestorm-connected-2 but decided instead to get 2 Zappi V2 installed instead. We already had a single charger installed so one was a straight replacement for that and the other went on a post elsewhere on the drive. I went for the untethered versions and bought 2 10m charging cables so that we (my wife) could park as badly as we liked and still have plenty of cable to reach the charge port on the car. Many of the tethered versions are only 5m long so a little more care is required when parking!

In my mind there are a number of advantages to having two chargers as opposed to a dual one. The choice is much larger so if there are particular features or styles that you're after then you're more likely to find a charger to suit. You can be more flexilble where you install the chargers as it doesn't have to be in a single point that allows you to reach both EVs at once. If one of the chargers goes bang (think Rolec...) then you'll have one still up and running whilst the broken one is being repaired. The Zappis talk to each other and balance the load as required so if you're reaching your load limit of 100A then the chargers will throttle back accordingly. We're on Octopus Intelligent and I've set timers for pretty much everything to come on when the price drops (two dishwashers, tumble dryer, immersion heater, 2 chargers @ 7.4kW each) the max load that I've seen is about 84A so I wouldn't worry too much about exceeding 100A. As I understand it domestic fuses are 'slow burners' so even if you have a brief peak above your max then there should be plenty of time for the chargers to throttle back the output accordingly. This would only be required if you decided to dry your clothes, cook a roast and have a shower in your electric shower at exactly the same time as your cars start charging.

I'd definitely go down the route of having two chargers. It did cost more up front but it's been totally convenient and we've not had any problems so far.

[theboss]

SiH said:

We were in a similar position with 2 EVs that were being used on a daily basis and with occasional long drives this meant that we needed to be able to easily charge both cars at the same time. No-one wants to see me strutting around on the drive in my dressing gown at 02:00 to swap cars on a single charger.

I looked at the dual chargers and we nearly went for a CTEK Chargestorm Connected 2 https://www.ctek.com/uk/ev-charging/chargestorm-connected-2 but decided instead to get 2 Zappi V2 installed instead. We already had a single charger installed so one was a straight replacement for that and the other went on a post elsewhere on the drive. I went for the untethered versions and bought 2 10m charging cables so that we (my wife) could park as badly as we liked and still have plenty of cable to reach the charge port on the car. Many of the tethered versions are only 5m long so a little more care is required when parking!

In my mind there are a number of advantages to having two chargers as opposed to a dual one. The choice is much larger so if there are particular features or styles that you're after then you're more likely to find a charger to suit. You can be more flexilble where you install the chargers as it doesn't have to be in a single point that allows you to reach both EVs at once. If one of the chargers goes bang (think Rolec...) then you'll have one still up and running whilst the broken one is being repaired. The Zappis talk to each other and balance the load as required so if you're reaching your load limit of 100A then the chargers will throttle back accordingly. We're on Octopus Intelligent and I've set timers for pretty much everything to come on when the price drops (two dishwashers, tumble dryer, immersion heater, 2 chargers @ 7.4kW each) the max load that I've seen is about 84A so I wouldn't worry too much about exceeding 100A. As I understand it domestic fuses are 'slow burners' so even if you have a brief peak above your max then there should be plenty of time for the chargers to throttle back the output accordingly. This would only be required if you decided to dry your clothes, cook a roast and have a shower in your electric shower at exactly the same time as your cars start charging.

I'd definitely go down the route of having two chargers. It did cost more up front but it's been totally convenient and we've not had any problems so far.

Pretty sure your incoming fuse size shouldn't be considered a fixed load limit! Did your installer notify your DNO of both chargers?

[JD]

I need to get a charger install at my current house, but trying to be budget conscious as I am moving within the year.

On the above setup in the outdoor meter cabinet, can the charger tap in directly here or will there need to be cabling run inside to the consumer unit?

I’m thinking of getting a charger off eBay and local electrician to join the two.

[essayer]

The white cables after the isolator switch would be split and run to a new consumer unit somewhere. It’s not supposed to go into that box, but plenty of electricians will put it there. One option might be an outdoor rated consumer unit adjacent to the meter box. Or you can bring it all inside but that will add to install time and cost.

[bennno]

JD said:

I need to get a charger install at my current house, but trying to be budget conscious as I am moving within the year.

On the above setup in the outdoor meter cabinet, can the charger tap in directly here or will there need to be cabling run inside to the consumer unit?

I’m thinking of getting a charger off eBay and local electrician to join the two.

We had ours installed at both in that way but with a micro consumer unit, I’d not advise getting an electrician and a unit from eBay - buy the charger and fitting from a specialist that way then inform the local power supplier, organise right sized fuse upgrade and you get a warranty etc etc

[gmaz]

JD said:

I need to get a charger install at my current house, but trying to be budget conscious as I am moving within the year.

On the above setup in the outdoor meter cabinet, can the charger tap in directly here or will there need to be cabling run inside to the consumer unit?

I’m thinking of getting a charger off eBay and local electrician to join the two.

If you are moving within a year, can't you just use a granny charger until then?

Otherwise I'd suggest an outdoor consumer unit connected to the meter tails via henley blocks, but get a qualified sparky to install it.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/british-general-sync-ev...

And avoid ebay chargers unless they are a well known brand, not chinese stuff.

[JD]

gmaz said:

JD said:

I need to get a charger install at my current house, but trying to be budget conscious as I am moving within the year.

On the above setup in the outdoor meter cabinet, can the charger tap in directly here or will there need to be cabling run inside to the consumer unit?

I’m thinking of getting a charger off eBay and local electrician to join the two.

If you are moving within a year, can't you just use a granny charger until then?

Otherwise I'd suggest an outdoor consumer unit connected to the meter tails via henley blocks, but get a qualified sparky to install it.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/british-general-sync-ev...

And avoid ebay chargers unless they are a well known brand, not chinese stuff.

I do a decent amount of miles, so don't want to end up getting a new car shine taken off by having to spend hours at my local supercharger, and thoughts are get one installed if I can do it cheaply.

I would also need to buy a granny charger as I believes Tesla's no longer come with one? This house has no sockets outside or that accessible from inside so anything with that would also require some expense.

I was looking at a reputable brand charger (probably a Tesla one as they seem to look most discreet), but second hand, the no name chinesium ones terrify me.

[m3jappa]

I wonder if i can tap into some wisdom.

Need to get a charger but all the online prompt type websites seem to suggest it needs to connect to the meter.

I am sure its the same for a lot of people but the meter is around 35m away from the garage, there is a 16mm cable though from the board in the house to a small board in the garage.

I assume thats ok to fit a charger off. How do i fill in an online form to reflect that?

The last thing i want is cables tacked to walls, ive been working hard here to remove or hide as much of the old cabling as possible

Is the ohme pro still a good option?

[fatjon]

m3jappa said:

I wonder if i can tap into some wisdom.

Need to get a charger but all the online prompt type websites seem to suggest it needs to connect to the meter.

I am sure its the same for a lot of people but the meter is around 35m away from the garage, there is a 16mm cable though from the board in the house to a small board in the garage.

I assume thats ok to fit a charger off. How do i fill in an online form to reflect that?

The last thing i want is cables tacked to walls, ive been working hard here to remove or hide as much of the old cabling as possible

Is the ohme pro still a good option?

at 35m a 16mm cable is ample and yes, you can then hang the charger off the sub board. On the other questions I can’t help much but a local sparky can likely install the charger exactly to your needs. The guy who did mine charged £250 for a very similar install off a second board in the garage 20m away.

[JD]

JD said:

I need to get a charger install at my current house, but trying to be budget conscious as I am moving within the year.

On the above setup in the outdoor meter cabinet, can the charger tap in directly here or will there need to be cabling run inside to the consumer unit?

I’m thinking of getting a charger off eBay and local electrician to join the two.

Moving forward with this, I bought a 2nd hand charger from eBay, but having real fun with what I feel are outrageous quotations from electricians that I might not bother and just use superchargers until I move.

Cheapest has been £550, with one quoting £800, for Henley blocks, mini consumer in the meter cabinet and 4m of armoured cable to the charger.

[df76]

JD said:

JD said:

I need to get a charger install at my current house, but trying to be budget conscious as I am moving within the year.

On the above setup in the outdoor meter cabinet, can the charger tap in directly here or will there need to be cabling run inside to the consumer unit?

I’m thinking of getting a charger off eBay and local electrician to join the two.

Moving forward with this, I bought a 2nd hand charger from eBay, but having real fun with what I feel are outrageous quotations from electricians that I might not bother and just use superchargers until I move.

Cheapest has been £550, with one quoting £800, for Henley blocks, mini consumer in the meter cabinet and 4m of armoured cable to the charger.

If you're moving house soon, I'd just be using a granny charger and Supercharger back up as required.

[KTF]

Does anyone have experience of Octopus installing EV chargers?

They have the Zappi on offer at just under a grand for a 'standard install'. Most places local to me seem to start at £1100 and go up for the same thing so was going to give them a try and see what the final cost actually came out at after the survey.

Or Octopus do the Ohme for pretty much the same price although the Zappi seems to be the preferred option.

[Mikebentley]

fatjon said:

m3jappa said:

I wonder if i can tap into some wisdom.

Need to get a charger but all the online prompt type websites seem to suggest it needs to connect to the meter.

I am sure its the same for a lot of people but the meter is around 35m away from the garage, there is a 16mm cable though from the board in the house to a small board in the garage.

I assume thats ok to fit a charger off. How do i fill in an online form to reflect that?

The last thing i want is cables tacked to walls, ive been working hard here to remove or hide as much of the old cabling as possible

Is the ohme pro still a good option?

at 35m a 16mm cable is ample and yes, you can then hang the charger off the sub board. On the other questions I can’t help much but a local sparky can likely install the charger exactly to your needs. The guy who did mine charged £250 for a very similar install off a second board in the garage 20m away.

I had the consumer unit in our detached double garage upgraded prior to the installation of our Ohme Home Pro charge point. The installer of the CP was insistent that we had a dedicated fuse of 40 Amp rating which our local electrician ensured was done.

[NDA]

m3jappa said:

Need to get a charger but all the online prompt type websites seem to suggest it needs to connect to the meter.

I am sure its the same for a lot of people but the meter is around 35m away from the garage, there is a 16mm cable though from the board in the house to a small board in the garage.

I assume thats ok to fit a charger off. How do i fill in an online form to reflect that?

The last thing i want is cables tacked to walls, ive been working hard here to remove or hide as much of the old cabling as possible

Is the ohme pro still a good option?

My garage (and charger) are a distance from the house and the meter. I had the power cable trenched to the garage - which I doubt an online form would have enabled me to specify. It needed a quote from someone who came and had a look.

Just as a balance to having a 'smart' charger, I had a 32amp Commando Socket (dumb) installed which I've used for 4 years without any issue. It probably wasn't much cheaper having this, but I don't need to communicate with the power outlet, only the car.