[Closed] EV Charger Woes

This sounds painful. We’ve a 7kW/32amp pod and our main fuse is only 63amp.. The unit has built in load detection as you say.

Ours wasn’t through pod point direct but a local company. They handled the paperwork and notified the DNO but there was no formal approval that I’m aware of..

Funnily enough I spoke with the DNO yesterday as it was on my list to get the main fuse upped to 80amps. Someone is coming out to look at it tomorrow from the DNO. There’s no charge unless you want 100amps (I think).

I’m pretty sure we’re on some weird 3 phase thing and I know next door has been mentioned in the past.. I hope I’m not in for a shock when the DNO come out and see the setup!

Have you spoken with the DNO on the phone or is it all via email? Has anyone from the DNO actually been out to do a survey? Ours were really good/friendly when I spoke with them on the phone.

You’ll pay more for a local company to fit the pod but they may be more responsive. What area are you in?

Yeah the DNO came out to survey / review what would be required to cut the neighbour off.
I've been speaking with the DNO via phone - they've been pretty good.

I'm based in Tunbridge Wells.

Is upgrading the fuse for the charger or just general upgrade?

Can’t help you with that but make sure your gas and water earth bounded, mine weren’t. So my charger is installed but not activated as they wouldn’t activate it until I sent photos of the them now bonded. I have sent them in and now waiting for them to reply.

Upgrading the fuse was just a general thing on my list that I hadn't got round to. The installer was relaxed about it.. they said no need to upgrade from 63amp just for the EV charger as it had this protection circuit in it.. The charger gets us a steady 27 mile per hour into the battery, although for some reason it seemed to dip to about half that for no reason for a couple of days before resolving itself.

I would have recommended you speak with the company who installed ours but they're based in the North East so probably not much value in that.

The charger has been in for 7 months on the 63amp fuse.

Do you need a charger? Been using a granny cable from an outside socket for a year now with a ZOE 40 as putting a charger at my place is going to mean a main fuse upgrade and a massive wiring and digging up the drive job. The electricity in to my house couldn’t be in a more inconvenient place. I’ve not got around to sorting it all out yet as frankly charging the car overnight from the granny cable has been absolutely fine as my commute is a 64 mile round trip and I can often stick it on a free charger at the park and ride before cycling across the city. Working from home more as well now so it’s made me even less worried about a charger. However, I’m thinking of replacing the other car with an EV so will probably sort out a charger then.

My charger is in as backup I intend to use the free one just down the road. I currently use a 13amp charger for my hybrid, I’d not want to charge my E-Tron from a 13amp it’ll take half a day.

Yeah I'd like a charger to make it safer/faster. It will take 33 hours via the 3 pin.

Just got a reply from a local fitter who said that as long as the charger as load balancing I can fit a 7kw that means:
Andersen
Zappi
Eo mini Pro
Pulsar plus
Project ev

Argh Pod-Point direct, that's hours of my life I won't get back...

Funnily enough I spoke with the DNO yesterday as it was on my list to get the main fuse upped to 80amps. Someone is coming out to look at it tomorrow from the DNO. There’s no charge unless you want 100amps (I think).

Hmm I've just had my main fuse (I think it's actually called a cut-out) upgraded FOC by my DNO and it was a 100a by default (I didn't ask for it). So not sure about that, might be down to what load is on your consumer unit as I already have a 7.2kw car charger installed so maybe they installed a 100a purely on seeing that, dunno TBH. You should tell them you intend to have a 7kw car charger installed and maybe they'll just install the 100a FOC for you, worth a punt.

it’ll take half a day

That’s what the nights for, much cheaper on an agile tariff and I suppose it depends how often you run the battery anywhere near needing a full charge or actually need a full charge for the days journeys.

At around 19 hours I’m not going to get much of off peak if it’s empty. The back up will be if I can’t get on the free charge so hopefully it won’t be flat but yes I’ll be aiming for off peak times only.

I had a Pod Point fitted a month ago through work. Wasn't sure they would fit it in the flat I rent (I did have the permission of my landlady). On the day the fitter turned up he was questioning the electrics, the run of the cable which was all at height and through a couple of walls, to be blunt a bastard of a job.
I told him I doubted he would be able to fit it but he told me to give him some time and he would call his office, he spent 40 minutes on the phone to his office and told me he could fit it but due to the electrics I won't get the 7kw charge but they have worked out I'd get about 4kw. I thought that be better than the 3 pin mains charger and I'm going to be mainly charging it at work, the home is more of a backup.

Took delivery of my car today and plugged it into the home charger just to see if it works and they were right in their calculations it shows 4.1kw

If you’re charging at up to 32A you’ll need the 100A fuse installed for your supply.

I imagine most houses these days have 100A supply fuses. Ours had a 60A until one night when I was charging the car and we had everything else on. Bang! Or rather pfzzt and no electricity.

NW electricity were brilliant and replaced the broken 60A with a 100A one and the associated bits and pieces within a couple of hours of calling them.

To further the granny charger option, it may not need to be limited to a 3 pin plug. Can you install either a 16a or 32a blue "commando" socket if the mobile connector that came with the car either fits them or can with an extra adapter? Would doing so avoid having to do something that's notifiable to the DNO or beyond what your supply can take?

At home I'm still using 32a commando after a year (because for other reasons I haven't fitted a proper charge point yet) and it's been plenty quick enough. I've also used 16a, which, because it's a genuine 16a while a 3 pin adapter only draws 10, is still materially different to 3 pin in charge time.

Hmm not seen the "commando" option, to be honest I want to do things properly given it won't just be my house that the fuse goes on - trying to be a good neighbour after all ha.

Think I'm going to go for the Zappi, just sent off for a few quotes but it's looking like 7-800 after grant. That unit seems to be the smartest and most protective, if being a big pig ugly plastic box ha.

Basically I could have had one fitted weeks ago if Pod-point just said "our solution is probably not the best for your supply, unless you're wanting a new power supply at the same time". I'm imagining a refund is going to takes weeks too 🙁 Oh well, at least this way I haven't caused a weeks worth of obtrusive noise on our road.

@B.A.Nana. Interesting that you got the 100 amp free of charge. My DNO's contractor, Clancy Docwra, are coming out on Monday to do the survey so hopefully all will become clear after that. I think the reason they say 100 amp is chargeable is to cover their back in case the incoming supply cable is not up to the task and would need replacing. I already have the charger in but like you say it is worth a punt. I'm hoping the 3 phase supply means it's up to the task of 100 amps.

@prettygreenparrot We've been charging at 32 amps for 7 months now without an issue on a 63 amp main fuse.. (touch wood!). Well.. the little sticker on the board says "63 amps".. whether or not that's what's in there is a different matter! I hope I'm not in for a shock when they come out on monday.. Does your EV charger have this load balancing/protection thing on it? Blowing the main fuse sounds a bit tasty and not something I ever want to experience.

So I sent off three emails last night to installers for the Zappi, 2 of 3 said that it would work with my current setup.

Interestingly one of them stated that Pod-point would work with my current setup and the DNO might only give approval to an installer not the general public!?

So after button smashing my way through the options I finally didn't reach a dead end on Pod-points customer service number and spoke to a human being. They're going to contact the DNO using my reference and see if they can obtain permission that way.

Fingers crossed since they already have my money it'd be so much easier!!

What is completely evident though if you go through this process, get 3+ opinions on everything...

Good luck with it all. Sounds like you've had an absolute nightmare with this! Let us know how it pans out. Cheers

Sometimes I think this forum takes feeds direct from The Matrix. By which I mean the topics quite often mirror exactly what’s going in my life.
Anyway Im in the same boat as the OP.
I’ve got a salary sacrificed E-2008 coming tomorrow morning. Mind it’s been on order since about May. It was going to have been an Etron but that’s another saga entirely.
So I was entitled to a free charge point as part of the deal but basically the survey revealed I’m on a 3 phase 4 way looped supply with my immediate neighbour and the next semi.
I was offered a price on a new supply but declined and to be fair the DNO contractor (Same as Nicks as I’m also in The N.E) were really helpful and suggested giving my neighbour a new supply FOC so a 3 phase for 3 houses would provide the required power. Sadly they couldn’t mole under their drive and the neighbours didn’t fancy their drive dig up just for my benefit. No problem with that but a lot of excavations took place prior to this.
They did say they could force the issue by issuing a disconnection notice but I didn’t want to go down that route.
My plan b was to do the 16a commando thing as I didn’t fancy the long term safety aspect of a 3 pin plug. Also when I get back to office I can charge there. Plus a 100kw rapid is 2 miles from me.
Anyhow yesterday I looking for commando cables and found a 2nd hand 16A chargemaster being sold along with type 2 cables. Managed to get them for under a hundred notes. My dads a sparky and we both did the recent rewire so I’m confident we can do this installation.
Once we get round to doing it I’ll update.

Update on my situation in case it is useful/relevant for others.

The DNO's contractor came out to the house today for the survey. The supply comes in to my house and then feeds the semi we're joined to, and the next two semis in the other direction too! So 4 houses in total.. Apparently very common in the area I live for this age of house.

To upgrade to an 80 amp main cutout will require excavating a portion of our block paved driveway so they can cut the power to work on the installation inside the house safely (sounds like they will replace the whole thing). No requirement for an upgraded supply cable just somewhere to cut it so they can do they work.

They knocked on all the affected properties to inform them. The main impact on them is the power being off for a time and if they want the 80 amp cutout, the work to upgrade that. One of them has already said it's inaccessible and they'll leave it at 63, and another seemed less than keen about the upgrade.

I think the fact that the supply comes in to my property from the street and then across to the other properties is a benefit as it is me requesting the upgrade and my drive that gets dug up.. Next door's drive is resin so impossible without re-doing the lot and I think it would take a fair bit of convincing to get them to accept a load of work and disruption just because I decided to get an EV. Apparently there is an SLA to get this all done in 4 weeks, but with lockdown 2.0 just around the corner, I can see it being longer than that.

The engineer said they would generally not fit a 100 amp cutout on domestic properties as the incoming supply cable is not up to it and there's no real need. He also wasn't concerned in the slightest about the 32 amp charger I have on the current 63 amp main cutout.

Not ideal having an area of the driveway dug up, but I'm comfortable with the plan and the fact the work is not chargeable to me.

@mikesbikes71 Let me know if you want any more details as it sounds like we're in the same area with similar scenarios.

I just had a 16A fitted on the basis I'd use public fast chargers if ever the home charger wasn't fast enough. I've used the local fast charger once in three years when getting home from a long run and wanting to go out again almost imediately.

Thanks for that update Nic.
I’ve PM’d you.

Got the 16a charge point installed and working. It uses an untethered type 2 which came with the sale.
Getting 12 miles of range per hour of charging which is exactly what I expected so fairly pleased really. That will be fine for 90% of charges. After any long journeys I think I’ll have to pop to a 50kwh at Lidl or somewhere to get it up to 70 or 80%. Either that or 2 successive nights.
The car is superb by the way. So easy to drive.
Managed to find a free vend 50kwh charger in Alnwick on Saturday. Starbucks after Thrunton woods for me and a quick charge for the car.

**UPDATE**

Pod-point got somewhere with UKPower and I have a 32a charger being installed later this month WITHOUT digging up my neighbours drive.

What a faff, but cheap convenient motoring woo!

Thank you all.

Now I just need to my current energy supplier to fit the smart economy 7 meter & then I can ditch them and get myself on an EV tariff.

Octopus do a specific EV tariff that gives cheaper charging overnight. Worth looking at.

(Apologies mods: I didn't know referral codes were forbidden)