EV car charger installation · any brand
Choosing a charger.
We install electric car charging points for houses, farmyards and business car parks, and we'll work with whichever brand suits you rather than the one we happen to stock. Most of the questions people ask us aren't really electrical — they're about which unit, where it goes, and whether the supply can carry it. This is the conversation we'd have standing on your drive, written down. The site visit and the estimate are free.
Six things that decide the job
In the order we'd actually ask them.
None of this is a sales process. It's the conversation that happens standing on your drive or in your yard, written down so you can have most of it before we get there.
01
Start with the car and the parking, not the charger
Which side of the car is the socket on, and which way do you pull in? It sounds trivial until the cable is being dragged across a gravel drive every night for the next eight years. On a farm the same question is about tractors and trailers: where the unit can live without being clipped by a telehandler.
02
Tethered or untethered
Tethered means the cable is attached — quicker day to day, tidier if there's somewhere to hang it, and locked to one connector type. Untethered means a socket on the wall and your own cable: neater, more flexible if the car changes, one more thing to carry. There isn't a right answer in general, only a right answer for how you'll use it.
03
Can the supply actually take it?
A 7kW charger is roughly a shower's worth of load, running for hours at a time. We check the incoming supply, the main fuse, the earthing arrangement and what else is already on the board before promising anything. Where headroom is tight, load management lets the charger back off while the oven and the shower are on — usually cheaper than a supply upgrade.
04
Earthing — the part nobody mentions
Charging outdoors carries its own earthing requirements, and how they're met depends on your incoming supply. Some installations want an earth rod; some use protection built into the charger. It's the least visible part of the job and the part most worth having done by someone who does it regularly.
05
Smart charging, tariffs and solar
Almost every current unit talks to an app and can be told to charge on a cheap overnight tariff. Some will divert surplus solar into the car instead of exporting it — which on a farm with a barn roof full of panels is the whole point. Worth configuring properly on day one rather than being handed a box and a QR code.
06
Farms, fleets and more than one charger
Two or three units on a yard is a different design problem from one on a house: load-sharing between them, where the distribution board sits, and whether the run is long enough to need a bigger cable than the manufacturer's diagram assumes. Worth designing as a scheme even if you only fit the first one this year.
Before you replace it
A charger is a computer on a wall.
A modern charger is a computer bolted to a wall, and plenty of the trade will simply quote you for a new one the moment it misbehaves. Send us the make, the model and a photo of the display and we'll give you an honest view on whether it's worth repairing before anybody talks about replacing it. We're shown as an approved myenergi installer on our own site, so zappi units are familiar ground — but we'll look at any brand.
Send us the model & a photoFaults worth ringing about
- Charger won't start a session, or drops out part-way through
- The unit trips its own protective device, or trips the board
- The app has lost the charger and won't reconnect
- Charging has slowed to a trickle with no obvious cause
- Error codes on the display the manual doesn't explain
- A long cable run to an outbuilding causing volt drop at the unit
What we won't tell you
A price for a charger when we haven't seen the drive.
Every national installer will quote a flat figure over the phone and then adjust it on the day, once they've seen how far the cable has to run and what the earthing arrangement is. We'd rather come and look first — the visit and the estimate are free — and give you a number that holds.
On brands: our own website shows the myenergi approved installer badge, so zappi units are familiar ground. That isn't a reason to sell you one. We can work with any brand of charger, and if a different unit suits how you park or what your supply can carry, we'll say so.
And if you've a farmyard or a small car park rather than a drive, it's worth designing the whole scheme now even if only the first unit goes in this year — retrofitting load sharing and a bigger cable after the trench is backfilled is the expensive way round.