Charge point install

[mrobins64495]

Hi all

Another question probably already covered, however I couldn’t find anything specific.

We’re looking at getting a home charge point installed, however our meter cupboard stupidly is installed right next to the front door, and the wife is concerned an install would trash her newly decorated walls.

My question is, I’ve seen some installs where they install directly onto the external meters and place a breaker. Has anyone had this done, and it so who with?

couple things on the house, it’s new(ish) so I imagine the wiring should be easy enough.

 

[cliver18]

I was told they wire it directly to your meter so no drilling through the walls into the house, they split the connection coming from your meter to feed the wall box

 

[Dilly]

Hi all

Another question probably already covered, however I couldn’t find anything specific.

We’re looking at getting a home charge point installed, however our meter cupboard stupidly is installed right next to the front door, and the wife is concerned an install would trash her newly decorated walls.

My question is, I’ve seen some installs where they install directly onto the external meters and place a breaker. Has anyone had this done, and it so who with?

couple things on the house, it’s new(ish) so I imagine the wiring should be easy enough.

When you say meter cupboard, are you referring to the supply meter outside? If so where is your indoor consumer unit in relation to the meter.

I’m fortunate in that both mine are inside and outside my attached garage. I have one Zappi in the garage and one outside our kitchen mounted on the wall. The cable for that is neatly trunked up the wall and goes through the loft to the consumer unit in the garage. To be fair, most of the trunking is hidden by a clematis that’s been there years!

I imagine that if you have no solar or storage battery, and the external meter cupboard has space, they could use a Henley block to split power from the meter to your home consumer unit one way and a breaker for the charger the other way. Drilling into the cupboard is easy enough. Making a mess, less so! Probably drilling up through the wall at an angle into the box is as neat as any method.

 

[mrobins64495]

When you say meter cupboard, are you referring to the supply meter outside? If so where is your indoor consumer unit in relation to the meter.

I’m fortunate in that both mine are inside and outside my attached garage. I have one Zappi in the garage and one outside our kitchen mounted on the wall. The cable for that is neatly trunked up the wall and goes through the loft to the consumer unit in the garage. To be fair, most of the trunking is hidden by a clematis that’s been there years!

hey, so the consumer unit is inside and the meter is outside.

They’re not too far from each other, she just really doesn’t want anything else inside by the consumer unit, as it’s right by the front door and not in an area where it can be hidden away. (Crap location tbf)

 

[LongRanger]

Just needs a spare slot in the consumer unit, enough space to house 18th regs box if needed in the little cupboard and then drill a hole for the cable through the wall.

The cable hole may impact 5-10mm of paint finish around the hole on the inside of the building, easy to retouch / put a simple gland covering. Drilling from inside to outside will help with minimising the mess, depends how good the person on the end of the drill is.

Unless you live in Buckingham palace - reckon you can persuade the wife that a bit of paint touch up is acceptable ..... ? Maybe just drill the hole when she’s out, it’s not going to get un-drilled is it

The charger itself goes on outside wall so no extra large boxes in your home.

 

[MrBadger]

Best to keep charge point electrics in its own enclosure and not shared with main fuse box. As well as 32A getting warm, it keeps problems self contained.

 

[AndrewGR]

Any competent installer will either do a survey or get you to send some photos before they turn up to do the install. They will know the neatest way to do the job. My charge point was wired from a spare way on the consumer unit. There is nothing visible inside the house.

 

[Cnixon]

Here is a fairly informative video for Consumer Unit install...in his own house.

And here is same guy doing a meter box install. He recommends the Zappi and explains why in video. Very educational. I did not think you could put anything othere than isolator in Meter Box but he installs an isolator & breaker.

 

[Cnixon]

Best to keep charge point electrics in its own enclosure and not shared with main fuse box. As well as 32A getting warm, it keeps problems self contained.

Nothing should get warm!

 

[Gil Kat]

I’ve done installations with both PodPoint and Chargemaster, they do an advance “survey” by asking you to take photos, and on the day both did an incredibly neat job. One issue is to choose carefully the place where they drill through the wall, so that the cable runs both indoors (which will likely be concealed behind white boxing) and outdoors are as unobtrusive as possible.

 

[Mr H]

My meter and consumer unit is in the hallway just inside the front door. The breaker is in there and the cable for the charge point goes straight from the cupboard through the wall - no cables on show at all