So... I won’t be getting a Rolec

[JCremonini]

Was due for a survey and install today. Guy turned up at 8am then I walked him through where I wanted the unit and the routing into the house and under the stairs. They would need to drill into the house then run the cable under some trunking along the skirting ( about 2m) and under the stairs. We spoke about how to make this tidy as there is a change in skirting depth about 8 inches before the stairs - I said he could channel it out ( the 8 inch bit ) and I would make do myself after.

So, he then says he would need to speak to his boss as this was looking more like a days works. He then comes back and says this would have to be a survey day as he’d like to go away and think about it. He also made noises about there being a BT cable close to where he needed to drill into the house but I pointed out if he drilled an inch above it there was absolutely no way he could hit it.

I was not happy at this point. As far as I am concerned it would take an hour at the most to do the ‘difficult’ cable bit and then it should take no more than an hour for a competent electrician to do the work at either end. No way on earth was this a days worth and I’m not paying any more then I have to to people,who, in my opinion, are just looking to make an extra quick buck . I then told him to forget it as I’m not having them fitting it if that is their attitude to a very small amount of extra work ( if any).

So, Rolec off the list then.

 

[Durzel]

Did they not ask you to do a video survey or take photos in advance of them turning up?

Not being funny but if you think it only takes an hour to do the drilling work, why don’t you do it?

No offence but it’s one of my professional pet hates when someone who knows less about a subject than I do tells me how long they think something should take, just based on gut instinct.

I think one hour is optimistic for a proper job based on your description.

 

[Yev000]

Exactly the same reason I went with Tesla.... They dont hide cables, none of them do. Any OLEV grant installer will put 'plastic trunking' and max 10 meters from the meter in the small print. They want to do a 1 hour job and claim £500 grant.

The unit cost about £400 (not VAT) + 1-2 hour of labour, you supply £350 so they pocket £450 for 1-2 hours of work. If they did the job how you wanted that would eat into their profit. Even if they charge you, they could be doing another job that day.

What you can do is a simple commando socket where you want the charger to be, then get Rolec or whoever round to go off that.

I just wanted one company to come and do everything and got Tesla recommended installer. Costs arm and a leg though, £460 for the WC and 500 (ex VAT) for the install + I got other work put in, like 3pin sockets next to the WC. They spent probably 4 hours on the charger install, turned up at 8 and left at 4 (did other stuff). I didn't need trunking though, was all under floor routing/drilling.

 

[adsheff]

From my experience of having a Pod Point installed it can be split into two parts - laying the cable and wiring it up. The cable-laying part is primarily a DIY exercise, and watching my electrician do it I realised I could do it tidier myself. Drilling, trunking, burying cables under stairs is something that can be time consuming but is not particularly skilled work, so you can do it yourself and take your time to get it looking perfect. Once the cables are in place, you can then get the electrician in to wire up both ends and test it properly.

An electrician that is qualified but also does a good job at the final finish is hard to find, and it may take a few jobs before you find one!

 

[Durzel]

There’s no point paying an electrician to do a handyman’s job, or if you can do it yourself even better.

That’s why I’m having to dig the trench myself for the cable that the guy who is installing mine. They wanted an extra £350 (7 hours) for it.

Obviously if your time is precious then you’re going to have to pay someone to do it, someone who in all likelihood won’t have your exacting standards. Thems the breaks really.

 

[JCremonini]

Did they not ask you to do a video survey or take photos in advance of them turning up?

Not being funny but if you think it only takes an hour to do the drilling work, why don’t you do it?

No offence but it’s one of my professional pet hates when someone who knows less about a subject than I do tells me how long they think something should take, just based on gut instinct.

I think one hour is optimistic for a proper job based on your description.

No offence taken. I sent them several photos and explained what each of them was. Why don’t I do it ? Well, I could - it’s just I thought I was paying someone to do it for me and didn’t anticipate the sucking of teeth. There is one brick wall to drill through and one wooden staircase. The skirting is 2m maximum. I was being generous with 1 hour. I even said I would make tidy afterwards if that helped. Even if it took them 2 hours I still had a 4 hour appointment with them ( 8am until midday) - which would give them 2 hours to do the rest of the work.

Absolutely no way would that work take that long.

 

[JCremonini]

I am going to look at EO next and insist they come round and do the survey before committing. If they then tell me which cable I need to get ( or commit and provide it ) I’ll do the leg work myself and leave them to do the rest if necessary.

 

[MOBB]

Someone from EO (or whoever they outsourced it to) is coming to my house on Monday to survey, I'll feedback how that goes

 

[Keeper]

No offence taken. I sent them several photos and explained what each of them was. Why don’t I do it ? Well, I could - it’s just I thought I was paying someone to do it for me and didn’t anticipate the sucking of teeth. There is one brick wall to drill through and one wooden staircase. The skirting is 2m maximum. I was being generous with 1 hour. I even said I would make tidy afterwards if that helped. Even if it took them 2 hours I still had a 4 hour appointment with them ( 8am until midday) - which would give them 2 hours to do the rest of the work.

Absolutely no way would that work take that long.

The only way to find out about being ripped off is to get a comparable quote from other installers. I did a bit of the work at my place prior to the installer coming (I told them I would) like lifting the carpet and a few floor boards and putting in a 10M pull rope under the floor from the outside wall to the under stairs cupboard (making sure it pulled). The Rolec installer was appreciative of what I had done and got the job done - no fuss, no mess, no problems.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

There's an element of truth in there being a bit of profiteering on the back of all government grant funded schemes. We had cavity wall insulation installed years ago, and the price we paid with the grant was exactly the same as the price we would have paid without the grant - the installers just pocketed the grant as additional profit.

Around here reasonable electricians charge between £200 and £220 per day, with a minimum charge usually for half a day (just to cover non-chargeable time, like ordering stuff, picking it up, driving around, etc). I'd guess you can probably add another £100 a day for someone in London, just because everything costs more there.

One option might be to get a price for just the wiring part, not mentioning an EV charge point installation, but get a quote to install a 32 A commando at the location where the charge point will go. The wiring from the CU to that point should be pretty much the same as for a charge point. That should give a guide as to that part of the installation cost.

I've installed both our charge points, one at either end of the drive, and can say that the work took a lot longer than an hour. I recently changed one of them for one with a bit more functionality, and it probably took me the best part of an hour just to do that, and complete the required safety and functional tests, and there were no significant wiring changes.

 

[JCremonini]

Update - I’ve spoken to a local installer of EO and Tesla chargers who was open and honest . Said that whatever they quote they stick to but if they are not sure then they will survey before the install date. Awaiting a call back so we can discuss the photos I have sent and we can go through the so-called issues the Rolec installer had.

 

[JCremonini]

There's an element of truth in there being a bit of profiteering on the back of all government grant funded schemes. We had cavity wall insulation installed years ago, and the price we paid with the grant was exactly the same as the price we would have paid without the grant - the installers just pocketed the grant as additional profit.

Around here reasonable electricians charge between £200 and £220 per day, with a minimum charge usually for half a day (just to cover non-chargeable time, like ordering stuff, picking it up, driving around, etc). I'd guess you can probably add another £100 a day for someone in London, just because everything costs more there.

One option might be to get a price for just the wiring part, not mentioning an EV charge point installation, but get a quote to install a 32 A commando at the location where the charge point will go. The wiring from the CU to that point should be pretty much the same as for a charge point. That should give a guide as to that part of the installation cost.

I've installed both our charge points, one at either end of the drive, and can say that the work took a lot longer than an hour. I recently changed one of them for one with a bit more functionality, and it probably took me the best part of an hour just to do that, and complete the required safety and functional tests, and there were no significant wiring changes.

I wasn’t expecting the whole install to take an hour. That was for navigating the ‘difficult bit’ . I had a 4 hour slot with them and I expected them to complete the work in that time.

 

[Durzel]

I too definitely feel that there’s an element of profiteering on the back of these installs. I’m getting an Andersen installed in November, and I’ve already paid £640 for the install. Would’ve been nearly £1k with the aforementioned trench digging.

Problem is - for the warranty, and the OLEV grant - it has to be installed by an authorised installer, so it’s not like I can just but it and pay a local spark to do it. I definitely don’t feel like I’ve saved anything by having the grant available though, as said above I think it’s just been absorbed by the installers.

 

[anon37485]

Rolec outsource the fitting to local electricians. Unfortunately your local has let you down/not met your expectations, but I assumed (with the topic title) that Rolec themselves were to blame here.

 

[jimbo_hippo]

There are several factors all working together or against each other here. Sadly, the demand for electric cars has risen and, partly due to this and the OLEV scheme, third party installers are flat out. The manufacturers of the chargers are flat out too.

I was fortunate to have a PV solar system with Powerwall installed last week so they were already under the floorboards and all over the house. I originally wanted a Rolec or a Zappi charger to integrate with the whole system. I ended up going with the Tesla one since the Rolec has to be the smart one for OLEV and there have been some 'challenges' with the solar integration on many installs and the Zappi has a massive waiting list of several months for the smart ones (if you know better, feel free to correct me as this isn't Zappi or Rolec saying so... but I've polled a good few installers and that's the general consensus on both).

My Tesla charger has no cables running to it that are visible as the cable was fed tidily to the back through a wall. It is connected to the Powerwall Gateway and (whilst it seems to have no intelligence in conjunction with the Powerwall) at least I know the whole system is as it should be. Plus, if anything goes amiss, there'll be no pointing at other peoples stuff and blaming that.

I know this doesn't help the original poster who only wanted a charger but I was adamant I wanted it all done as one package to prevent the issues discussed above. Worth bearing in mind if you intend to have solar AND a charger.

All I need now is a car to plug into it all!

 

[R.A.G]

Rolec outsource the fitting to local electricians. Unfortunately your local has let you down/not met your expectations, but I assumed (with the topic title) that Rolec themselves were to blame here.

+1, this shouldn’t stop you having a Rolec unit installed, it’s the contractor that you have had a bad experience with, not Rolec.

 

[booyaka76]

Agreed - my Rolec fitting was priced high - mainly cause they know the grants make it more "appealing" to the customer.

My overall cost was priced at £1242 for the job.

Drill through wall to outside, run 15m of external cabling to Rolec unit on the wall. Time consuming, yes, maybe 4 hours total.

however NOT a £1240 job - but since they claim £500 back, Then I can claim another £300 from EST in Scotland - price to me is £440 at the end of the day when everything is done and dusted. That price is the same price as I can buy just the unit so overall it's fine by me. I don't care if they over price it.

Also people never factor in lots of things when it comes to a "job"

Consider -

Training undertaken
Equipment costs
Travel costs
Certification/Annual training/register
Tax
Vat

It might be 1 or 2 hours on site with a client but there are LOAD of other factors that come into pricing a job.

 

[navt]

I think OLEV determine an average installation rate throughout the country, which is obviously higher in some areas than others - so only way to cover costs is to inflate hours. A good installer would provide references - my Rolec installer did. My install was straight forward and I mistakenly assumed it would be a quick job, under-estimating the effort involved. I've had my charge point since June. I hope to have my car sometime next week.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Agreed - my Rolec fitting was priced high - mainly cause they know the grants make it more "appealing" to the customer.

My overall cost was priced at £1242 for the job.

Drill through wall to outside, run 15m of external cabling to Rolec unit on the wall. Time consuming, yes, maybe 4 hours total.

however NOT a £1240 job - but since they claim £500 back, Then I can claim another £300 from EST in Scotland - price to me is £440 at the end of the day when everything is done and dusted. That price is the same price as I can buy just the unit so overall it's fine by me. I don't care if they over price it.

Also people never factor in lots of things when it comes to a "job"

Consider -

Training undertaken
Equipment costs
Travel costs
Certification/Annual training/register
Tax
Vat

It might be 1 or 2 hours on site with a client but there are LOAD of other factors that come into pricing a job.

Typical day rate for a decent electrician outside of London will be around £200 to £220/day. Some rural areas are lower than this; I know a good chap that works for around £180/day, as that's as much as the local market will bear. Those rates include all overheads (travel, ordering stuff, competency assessments, fees to the Part P cartels, etc), but exclude all materials.

As I mentioned earlier, most will have a minimum charge for half a day, some will charge a half day at 2/3rd of a day, mainly for the embuggerance factor created by lots of small jobs. Some won't do small jobs (half a day or so) because of the disproportionate hassle involved.

However, charging more that £200 labour for a half day EVSE installation (outside London) is really pushing it, IMHO. Apart from the EVSE cost (typically between £400 for a basic, unit, to over £800 for an all-singing, all-dancing, unit) there will be the cost of the 6mm² cable (between ~£2.00 and ~£3.00/metre), earth rod, wiring ancillaries etc, which will add maybe another £50 to £80 or so to the materials bill for a typical install (more for a long cable run).

People can do their own sums as to whether their quoted installation price is taking advantage of the grant or not. The grant covers up to 75% of the cost up to a maximum of £500 for the installed EVSE, provided it meets the OLEV criteria. For a basic OLEV compliant EVSE, mounted 10m away from the supply, then the materials cost is likely to be around £450 to £475 at most. Assuming that half a day's labour is charged at a fairly generous £150, then the total comes to about £625, tops. Take off the 75% OLEV grant and that comes down to a cost to the householder of ~£156. I doubt that anyone only charges this sort of money for an install, so someone, somewhere, is making a fair bit out of the system, I suspect. I'm not convinced it's the electricians making the money, either. I made a couple of calls this morning and one friend who's contracted to one of the EVSE suppliers told me he gets about £200 on average for each install, and he has to provide the cable, wiring ancillaries etc out of that (he gets the EVSE free issue).

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Exactly the same reason I went with Tesla.... They dont hide cables, none of them do. Any OLEV grant installer will put 'plastic trunking' and max 10 meters from the meter in the small print. They want to do a 1 hour job and claim £500 grant.

Hah. Trunking, you'll be lucky.. Ours just ran it along the skirting boards.. luckily I can hide most of it under crap.

They're just there to do a job as fast as possible and GTFO.