Podpoint extra wiring charge

[m3p_uk]

My friend is waiting for delivery of a Kia eniro which was ordered in may but should be arriving next month.
They paid £450 to have the charger installed last month but now podpoint want an extra £230 for some additional wiring.
The electric meter is the other side of the house to the garage they want it installed in but even so it does seem excessive to me.
The fuse box / consumer unit is under the stairs in the middle of the house but awkward to get to the garage from there.
Anyone else been charged a similar extra amount?

 

[NewbieT]

The T&Cs do state an assumption on cable length. Longer run = more cable, (possibly thicker cable), more time. Doesn’t seem that unreasonable.

If they’re unsure get another quote.

 

[init6]

The £450 is for a standard install based on the customer's measurements. If the customer has measured incorrectly or not given a true picture of what is required to get from the consumer unit to the garage, then PP will offer to do the work with an additional charge. Take a look at the limitations of the standard install: General Terms and Conditions | Pod Point.

Could it be that they will have to run the cable around the house to reach the garage, rather than going direct?

 

[Glan gluaisne]

It'll be the additional labour cost, I expect. The cable is cheap, under £3 per metre, but laying it, drilling access holes, clipping it, etc, takes time, and as they say, time is money. Having said that, the day rate around here for a really good electrician is only around £200 to £220, and I doubt this has added a day's work to the job. I get the feeling that sometimes EV owners are treated a bit like yacht owners, and charged higher than normal rates, on the basis that EVs are expensive so they can probably afford it . . .

 

[m3p_uk]

Quite hard to get other quotes at this short notice unfortunately.
Just seems rather expensive for the extra cable which will just be clipped to the outside of the house.
Have a feeling that they are trying to make an quick extra buck with not so standard installs

 

[andylaight]

I had a pod point install this week for £529. They did do a very decent job, I had already paid a local electrical company £695 to upgrade my garage supply to a 50A supply though.

 

[adsheff]

I had the same thing. It required a long cable from the consumer unit in the middle of the house, through the kitchen and then around the edge of the garden and in through the garage wall. It was about 25-30m in total, and was £500 extra.

I will say after watching the guy do it - most of the job is just laying the cable and making it tidy, so if you're good at DIY you can do that yourself and just get them to wire up the ends. For example, the armoured cable outside in the garden is just laid on the ground and buried a couple of inches alongside the fence - not an expert job at all.

We had originally thought the cable would need to be put in the kitchen ceiling to hide it, but came across 'D-line' trunking which, when put along the top of a skirting board, blends in and no one notices it at all.

 

[Durzel]

It'll be the additional labour cost, I expect. The cable is cheap, under £3 per metre, but laying it, drilling access holes, clipping it, etc, takes time, and as they say, time is money. Having said that, the day rate around here for a really good electrician is only around £200 to £220, and I doubt this has added a day's work to the job. I get the feeling that sometimes EV owners are treated a bit like yacht owners, and charged higher than normal rates, on the basis that EVs are expensive so they can probably afford it . . .

I tend to agree.

I'm very suspicious of installers that are aware of the OLEV grant, after my experience.

When I had my Andersen installed I had to pay an additional £600 on top of the standard installation. It did involve about 20m of cable total (don't know how much is included in the standard install), but I dug the trench required and filled it in afterwards to save on labour. All the guy had to do was run the cable and clip it. There was plenty of access and nothing had to be lifted or anything. I also paid for a 2 way CU which I know I was also overcharged on. I don't mind these companies making a profit but I'd rather they not pull my pants down for every aspect of it.

The guy turned up and had brought a different cable to the one I had discussed I would get. I basically wanted thick enough cable going to the CU so that I could get a second charge point at the same location down the line. On the day my choice was either for him to install it or wait however long for another appointment. Bearing in mind I'd already waited several weeks and taken time off, etc I decided to go ahead.

I suspect these companies tend to operate on the belief that you've already paid for the standard install you're committed emotionally so unwinding all of that or throwing that money away and getting a local sparky to do it feels unpalatable. So you agree to pay the extra through gritted teeth. In my case I'd already paid Andersen £1200 or so weeks ago, so don't think I could've got that money back, so I pretty much had no choice but to pay up.

I would be willing to bet money that if you got a quote from an OLEV aware installer and compared it to a local sparky there wouldn't be anything in it. You certainly don't see that £350 saving in your back pocket, in my opinion.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Most seem to budget on 10m of cable included in a basic install, so you'd have been paying for an additional 10m. At most this would be £30 of cable (that's at retail price) so it looks like the additional labour came to about £570. Nice work if you can get it!

 

[init6]

if you're good at DIY you can do that yourself and just get them to wire up the ends.

I ran the cable myself and they just connected the ends (and all the other work). I wanted the cable under my floor and they were happy for me to do that. Cable got shipped to me a few days before the install. Not sure if all installs get the cable shipped beforehand, but perhaps this is why non-standard installs are a pain for them if they have to ship different cable lengths.

Did your friend measure the route before they placed the order? If they hadn't and were just chancing that PP would install the extra cable then they only have themselves to blame. No reason for them not to have the correct price before the install.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

The cable is bog standard 6mm² SWA, or perhaps NYY-J, and I'd be amazed if installers didn't have reels of the stuff on their vans. It might not be a cable size carried by that many domestic electricians as standard, but approved charge point installers should have reels of the stuff, as, apart from anything else, buying it by the reel is cheaper than buying it by the metre (usually by around 10% to 20%).

 

[init6]

The cable is bog standard 6mm² SWA, or perhaps NYY-J, and I'd be amazed if installers didn't have reels of the stuff on their vans. It might not be a cable size carried by that many domestic electricians as standard, but approved charge point installers should have reels of the stuff, as, apart from anything else, buying it by the reel is cheaper than buying it by the metre (usually by around 10% to 20%).

Mine came as a 15m roll of cable* even though I only needed 10. Perhaps that's just how they manage their logistics. Lots of companies send out pre-packed stores to save them having to keep unused stock in vans etc. I know it sounds daft, but it has to do with accounting rather than common sense.

"Two cables. There's also a data cable that is needed for the charger to connect back to the supply.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

"Two cables. There's also a data cable that is needed for the charger to connect back to the supply.

There's a combined SWA power and data cable available now. It's a bit more expensive than running separate cables, but it's slightly quicker to install, and does look a bit neater.

 

[Niasku]

PODPoint only include 5m of cabling from consumer unit to the charging point within the standard install price. My house was 4.5m so got away without extra charges!

 

[Durzel]

Most seem to budget on 10m of cable included in a basic install, so you'd have been paying for an additional 10m. At most this would be £30 of cable (that's at retail price) so it looks like the additional labour came to about £570. Nice work if you can get it!

Basically I was mugged. But what could I do at that point? Was already £1150 odd in.

Makes me mad whenever I think about it.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

£8/m! Ye Gods, that's a bit much. The most expensive supplier (only used in emergencies!) tends to be CEF, and they list 6mm², by the metre, at £3.20 inc VAT. The place I usually use sells it (retail) for £2.64/m, inc VAT. Buying it in whole reels reducing the retail price to around £2.40/m, less if you've got an account.

This does illustrate that some installers seem to think that EV owners can be milked for cash, perhaps.

 

[MrBadger]

7 hours to run a cable and clip it. I would be reporting them to their registration body and Anderson if there was any affiliation.

How long were they on site total?

 

[twlr]

7 hours to run a cable and clip it. I would be reporting them to their registration body and Anderson if there was any affiliation.

How long were they on site total?

That's 7 additional hours, on top of the 4 that's part of the standard installation!

 

[Glan gluaisne]

For comparison, I ran about 20m of SWA yesterday, from our garage, under a path and along a fence, feeding four outside lights. The whole job, including wiring up four wiska boxes and runs of flex into each light, took me around 3 hours. 7 hours to run 10m of cable is OTT, unless the cable was run underground, perhaps.

 

[Durzel]

The guy was on site the entire day, to be fair, but mostly because he had a nightmare trying to get the unit attached to the wall where I wanted it to go, because of crumbling mortar. I can't really fault the engineer who installed it, but yeah I was certainly taken advantage of. I wonder if it's even worse with the Andersen because they might figure "well he's spending over a grand already"...

Approx 4m of the cable was underground, but again I dug the trench already and even made good afterwards - all he had to do was run it in the crevice. The rest of it was inside an outbuilding, but free access in there.

EDIT: It didn't even occur to me until reading the above that they quoted for 11 hours including the standard install time of 4. I would have kicked off about that had I thought of it at the time.