POD Point charger semi dead?

[neil_c]

Hi everybody,

We’ve got a slightly strange problem and this seems to be the place to get help.

I was power washing the driveway Saturday, and suddenly my wife came down to tell me that the house had lost power. (she was drying her hair at the time, and the hairdryer went off). I went to them consumer unit and found one of the switches in the down position, so I pushed it up and everything came back on. No problem I thought and carried on pressure washing the driveway.

I should add that about an 2 hours before this,I had been out, and when I came back, I plugged my hybrid Mercedes E class in to charge and all was fine.

Yesterday (Sunday) we took my wife’s new Tesla out for and when we got back in the evening, we unplugged thecharger from my car and plugged it into hers.

What we noticed about a minute later was that the Tesla app was showing a “charge failed” notification.

What’s weird about this situation is that the car initially acknowledges that the charger has been plugged in and that it’s charging and then a minute later we get the charge failed notification.

We then plugged the charger into my car to see if it made any difference and a similar thing happened in that the car and my app acknowledged the charger and showed it was at 71% charge but wouldn’t go any further.

I also realised that this point that my car should have been fully charged from when I put it on charge earlier that morning as it’s a hybrid and only a small battery. So I think now what happened was that when the house tripped while I was power washing the drive it appears the PodPoint charger died at that point, or at least died enough not to be able to put out a charge that the cars are requesting if that makes sense?

There is a separate little box in our garage next to the consumer unit for the PodPoint charger, and I have turned that off and on again, but we still have the red light outside on the PodPoint charger, so I can’t help,but wonder if it’s just failed in someway.

I guess I have two questions…

If the unit outside (which is a tethered unit) has failed in someway, would I be right saying we can just buy another of those units (or another make of charger) and swap them out?

Or, can we get it repaired?

All help and advice welcome.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I was power washing the driveway Saturday, and suddenly my wife came down to tell me that the house had lost power.

Powerwasher didn't go off? (Different circuit maybe ... if it stayed on then presumably it isn't the culprit for tripping anything)

So assuming Pod Point coincidentally failed at that moment - presumably if you had been pointing the washer at it you wouldn't have been aware of that?!! ) seems a bit curious that it took out the circuit your wife was using (if it didn't trip the main breaker, in which case it would have taken your Powerwasher with it - unless you have a different consumer unit for that)

If the unit outside (which is a tethered unit) has failed in someway, would I be right saying we can just buy another of those units (or another make of charger) and swap them out?

Or, can we get it repaired?

My opinion would be get another, then have the old one repaired, then flog the old one.

Reason being that I expect repair is "a long time waiting", and you'll want to be able to charge the car in the meantime. But if you can charge car from 13AMP, in meantime, then I guess Repair is an option.

Inverter on my PV failed. Common / Known fault - but out of warranty. Googling revealed that it is a £10 part, but £lots to replace the inverter. My Sparky agreed but said he wasn't skilled to fix it, so Replaced, then found someone to fix it, then flogged it on eBay.

If you are having a Sparky out to do the work maybe consider fitting a fall back - e.g. Commando. That insurance cost will prevent it ever happening again

 

[init6]

The little box next to the consumer unit is a separate feed for your PodPoint charger from your main fuse. The circuits should not be impacted by an error on the house circuits - unless there was a spike or something on the mains supply.

How long have you had the charger? Podpoint are usually quite good at fixing things. They even have a handy page to help troubleshoot:

Pod Point Help Centre

help.pod-point.com

TLDR: switch off at the little box (obligatory 10 seconds ) and check the energy clamp is still in place.

 

[neil_c]

I actually just spoke to Pod-Point. I didn’t think it would be fruitful, but it kinda was.

The lady reset the charger and we can now charge at 3.7kW as she suspects there may be a fault with the clamp on the unit in the garage, so at least we can charge in the interim.

Its not an issue with my car as it‘s a hybrid and has a tiny battery, but charging my Wife’s Tesla may be an issue going forward.

 

[neil_c]

The little box next to the consumer unit is a separate feed for your PodPoint charger from your main fuse. The circuits should not be impacted by an error on the house circuits - unless there was a spike or something on the mains supply.

How long have you had the charger? Podpoint are usually quite good at fixing things. They even have a handy page to help troubleshoot:

Pod Point Help Centre

help.pod-point.com

TLDR: switch off at the little box (obligatory 10 seconds ) and check the energy clamp is still in place.

The energy clamp is still there and in place.

 

[init6]

Probably a broken wire in the cable. I had that. IIRC they fixed it pretty quickly.