Home charger installation

[Gerber1]

I'm looking at getting an electric car charger installed; however, the only viable location to install a charger is behind the garden gate, meaning you'd need to open and close it every time you want to plug or unplug the car.

I suspect this may grate after a while?

One alternative is to move the gate back 6ft so it's in line with the next brick column, but it was an expensive custom-made steel gate and might not fit quite so well. It would also mean cutting a hole in the imprinted concrete patio and patching up the old hole from where the gate used to be. I think this would make a bit of a mess.

Or perhaps I could rig up some roller wheel above the gate for the charging cable to sit on? The car's charging socket would be about 7 meters from the wall charger.

Has anyone had similar problems, and how did you overcome them?

[this is my username]

Could you mount the charger on one side of the gate but store the cable on the other side (where the car is)?

Generally there is no physical interaction required with the charger unit itself, it's all done through an app.

My Ohme charger came with 8m of cable.

[Paul Drawmer]

I guess you mean that the charger will be on the 'wrong side' of the gate.

Get a tethered cable charger (you may need a longer custom cable). Fix a dummy holster near where the car's charge port will end up,
If you run the cable at high level to the holster, but leave a loop hanging down; then the extra cable will enable you to reach up to the holster, grab the charger connector and plug into the car without the cable dragging on the ground.



The drive is too narrow next to my house so I park with the charge flap just in front of the wooden post. I can open the flap, reach up and grab the connector and plug in with one hand, and the cable never hits the ground.

My back gate is out of picture to the right of the Zappi.

[TheDeuce]

Paul Drawmer said:

I guess you mean that the charger will be on the 'wrong side' of the gate.

Get a tethered cable charger (you may need a longer custom cable). Fix a dummy holster near where the car's charge port will end up,
If you run the cable at high level to the holster, but leave a loop hanging down; then the extra cable will enable you to reach up to the holster, grab the charger connector and plug into the car without the cable dragging on the ground.



The drive is too narrow next to my house so I park with the charge flap just in front of the wooden post. I can open the flap, reach up and grab the connector and plug in with one hand, and the cable never hits the ground.

My back gate is out of picture to the right of the Zappi.

Cut your grass, jeez

But yea, tethered charger with a decent length cable and feed in around the gate somehow, makes sense. There's no need to access the charger, just need the plug to be within reach of where the car is parked.

[Paul Drawmer]

TheDeuce said:

Cut your grass, jeez

That's our wildflower patch. Been managing it like this for several years. Most of the locals love it.

It gets cut off at the roots in September. The thatch is shaken well to let the seeds fall and then disposed of. It's then mown until mid December when the daffodils start appearing,

[Gerber1]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I've done a little rough sketch of the layout (not to scale but you get the idea).

I don't think I have the space for a dummy holster on the side of the house, and I can't get the cable on the opposite side (to run along the border) without it digging under the patio.

I think my only option is to live with the inconvenience of having to open and close the gate every time I use the car, or move the gate to the next post along and tolerate the making good of the floor.