Home charging socket installation problems?

[David Kent]

Has anyone had problems when it came to having a charging socket installed?  I'm thinking that before forking out for a car I should have the installers survey the site as there may be problems with the wiring.  Our house was re-wired in the 1970s and I'm worried that the installer may say that the wiring is not up to the job of charging the car.

Or is it just me being paranoid?  

[Harters]

If its anything like when I had the charge point installed for my Zoe, whoever is putting in the point will survey your property to check wiring etc.

Our house was built in 1991 with a detached garage to the side of the property and the wiring to the garage was not up to the job.  Chargemaster will only install when the charge point (ours is 32amp) when the wiring is up to spec.  I had an electrician put in a complete separate circuit from the meter box, including its own isolation circuit separate from the house circuit all the way to the garage.  Once that was done Chargemaster came back and did the install.

The survey guy also said that our fuse box in the house would not have been suitable it we wanted to have the charge point on the house instead of the garage and would still require a dedicated circuit so I would definately get a survey first.  I know the Zoe is fully electric so has more of a drain, but better to be safe than sorry.

[aCactus]

It's not just the power wiring that can be a problem, for my installation the wiring to the garage was acceptable but when the electrician  tried to install a new earth rod under the unit he did not get an connection that met the required reading on his tester having drilled through the concrete floor and hammered a long copper rod into the ground. He did manage to get an acceptable earthing point on the other side of the garage.

[Chris Dance]

Had a charging point installed a year or so ago free by British Gas. i was going to buy a Prius plug in but after I found it had no spare wheel I abandoned the idea.

British gas took a cable from the trip in the meter box in the house; then put it in a conduit in the house then outside and round the front of the house and put the charging point in the garage; It is quite a neat job, the cable is hidden by flowers for most of the year.

British Gas did an inspection prior to the installation.

[aCactus]

British Gas stopped dealing with home chargers a while ago as I found out last year when mine failed - chargemaster who made the units are still in business